Diminished West revisited

Hisham Melhem published a bold and compelling piece over the weekend about Western interactions with Iran that has garnered a great deal of praise from people I respect. Hisham lambasts the Italians for covering up nude statues during the visit of President Rouhani, mocks Rouhani for asking the Pope to pray for him, praises the French for insisting that any meal they serve has to include wine, excoriates the Supreme Leader for Holocaust denial, and decries the Iranian humiliation of American sailors. He appears to have convinced most that these recent incidents with Iran have diminished the West, perhaps irreversibly.

I think he is wrong on the merits, most notably the notion that anything that happened last week suggests diminished the West. If I have to live in a civilization in decline, let it be this one.

But let me respond to his points one-by-one.

On the statues and the wine: we all bend a bit to the preferences of our guests. I am a pork eater, but I wouldn’t serve it during a meal with Kosher or Muslim guests. I don’t know anyone who would. The French are entitled to their view that wine is essential to a meal, but I find that attitude rather intolerant and inhospitable. I bet their businessmen aren’t insisting on wine served at meals if their Iranian Airbus customers object. As for the statues, what the Italians did is at least as laughable as what John Ashcroft did in covering statues at the Justice Department, but that didn’t convince me America is in decline. Italian spinelessness shouldn’t convince anyone that the West is diminished.

As for the Pope, I bet Francis wishes he had a dollar for all the visitors who ask him to pray for them. What else does one ask of the Pope?

The parts of Melhem’s lamentation that have some merit are the complaint about showing photographs of the US sailors, who so far as I can tell really did violate Iran’s territorial integrity, as well as the complaint about Khamenei’s Holocaust denial.

My understanding is that display of prisoners is a violation of 1949 Geneva convention. The Americans should have objected, vigorously. I take it they did not because they were relieved to get them back quickly after they entered Iranian territory and did not want to undermine those who had made the arrangements for their return. That is screwy, as we need the Iranians reminded that the nuclear deal, and more generally Tehran’s return to the international community, entails responsibilities as well as privileges.

On the Holocaust, I thought Khamenei’s video seemed less committed to denial than previous utterances. He says “it is not clear whether the core of this matter is reality or not… Even if it is a reality, it is not clear how it happened.” That’s far from a resounding denial and might even be interpreted as an implicit retreat from it. I won’t be satisfied until Iran accepts not only the reality of the Holocaust but also one of the consequences: creation of the state of Israel. But listening to your enemies is at least as important as denouncing them. I’ll leave to Iran experts whether I have misheard.

I realize of course that Hisham’s tirade is in defense of the West and its liberal values. But I don’t think on close examination that it works. Insisting that others accept your standards and beliefs is not a liberal value. Listening to them and talking with them about why we believe what we do is. But that won’t attract anywhere near the same notice as a broadside.