I couldn't agree more with this essay. The entire UN has been corrupted into a way to launder the crimes of the powerful. I will raise you one, Mike. I am adamant that the next president push for us to join the ICC so that these criminals running things are held to account. It is clear our own courts will do nothing and the world needs to see we are serious about fixing the mess the international order has become. We will need to earn back a lot of trust.
I believe there is another step in this process that must be taken if any of the moral principles here are to be realised, and that is to enforce the proper punishment for crimes against peace.
The United States (more accurately at this time, MAGA America: https://substack.com/@dpareja/note/c-231768858) and Israel have, in my view, committed crimes against peace in waging an unprovoked war against Iran. The remedy for this is no less than what happened to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan after they committed the same.
That remedy is threefold: punishment of the leaders, suspension of domestic autonomy, and imposition of a new constitutional order with a gradual transition back to domestic autonomy and democratic governance. The punishment of the 1940s was the death penalty (for those who had not already taken their own lives by suicide, and with the exception, for political reasons, of Emperor Hirohito). Since I personally am opposed to the death penalty, I would rather see Donald Trump celebrate his 100th birthday from Slobodan Milošević's jail cell, and so on for other leaders involved. Suspension of domestic autonomy would entail those polities being run by the international democratic community until such time as new constitutions and legal orders can be written (for instance, changes to the education curriculum to abolish the toxic myths of American exceptionalism and manifest destiny are necessary). Any new constitutional order would follow the same model that the United States itself has used when writing new constitutions for other countries (such as Japan, Iraq, and, in conjunction with the other Western Allies, the Federal Republic of Germany): a parliamentary republic (which Israel already is, but reforms would be made to ensure that religious extremism cannot become a driving force in government) or constitutional monarchy (which the United States could quite readily, on the basis of historical association, become with Charles of Windsor as head of state).
Other steps are necessary; I do not dispute the substance of what Mike lays out, and claim only that it is insufficient.
Imagining and proposing alternatives is always good even if they are infeasible. The conflicts have only existed since the 1920s at most they aren't ancient or intractable
Banji the conflicts in the Middle East are centuries old not decades. They have changed & evolved but are deeply rooted in the various cultures that exist there. European colonialism changed things, but ultimately didn’t change the cultures.
Shadi asks: imposed by whom, and how? The answer: the default arrangement—great powers deciding over everyone else—is itself an imposition. Moral imagination isn’t fantasy; it’s direction.
Relinquish the Security Council seat. Empower the General Assembly. Assert universal principles. Perfect mechanisms don’t exist yet—but naming what better looks like is the first step toward building it.
The world won’t change by defending the arrangements that produced Gaza, Ukraine, and a closed Strait of Hormuz. It changes by envisioning, insisting, and building institutions that align power with principle. That’s moral imagination.
Great read, thank you
I couldn't agree more with this essay. The entire UN has been corrupted into a way to launder the crimes of the powerful. I will raise you one, Mike. I am adamant that the next president push for us to join the ICC so that these criminals running things are held to account. It is clear our own courts will do nothing and the world needs to see we are serious about fixing the mess the international order has become. We will need to earn back a lot of trust.
I believe there is another step in this process that must be taken if any of the moral principles here are to be realised, and that is to enforce the proper punishment for crimes against peace.
The United States (more accurately at this time, MAGA America: https://substack.com/@dpareja/note/c-231768858) and Israel have, in my view, committed crimes against peace in waging an unprovoked war against Iran. The remedy for this is no less than what happened to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan after they committed the same.
That remedy is threefold: punishment of the leaders, suspension of domestic autonomy, and imposition of a new constitutional order with a gradual transition back to domestic autonomy and democratic governance. The punishment of the 1940s was the death penalty (for those who had not already taken their own lives by suicide, and with the exception, for political reasons, of Emperor Hirohito). Since I personally am opposed to the death penalty, I would rather see Donald Trump celebrate his 100th birthday from Slobodan Milošević's jail cell, and so on for other leaders involved. Suspension of domestic autonomy would entail those polities being run by the international democratic community until such time as new constitutions and legal orders can be written (for instance, changes to the education curriculum to abolish the toxic myths of American exceptionalism and manifest destiny are necessary). Any new constitutional order would follow the same model that the United States itself has used when writing new constitutions for other countries (such as Japan, Iraq, and, in conjunction with the other Western Allies, the Federal Republic of Germany): a parliamentary republic (which Israel already is, but reforms would be made to ensure that religious extremism cannot become a driving force in government) or constitutional monarchy (which the United States could quite readily, on the basis of historical association, become with Charles of Windsor as head of state).
Other steps are necessary; I do not dispute the substance of what Mike lays out, and claim only that it is insufficient.
That is my moral imagination.
Simply: Thank you, Mike!
Yes. Are you familiar with Heba Aly and the Article 109 initiative?
Imagining and proposing alternatives is always good even if they are infeasible. The conflicts have only existed since the 1920s at most they aren't ancient or intractable
Banji the conflicts in the Middle East are centuries old not decades. They have changed & evolved but are deeply rooted in the various cultures that exist there. European colonialism changed things, but ultimately didn’t change the cultures.
Shadi asks: imposed by whom, and how? The answer: the default arrangement—great powers deciding over everyone else—is itself an imposition. Moral imagination isn’t fantasy; it’s direction.
Relinquish the Security Council seat. Empower the General Assembly. Assert universal principles. Perfect mechanisms don’t exist yet—but naming what better looks like is the first step toward building it.
The world won’t change by defending the arrangements that produced Gaza, Ukraine, and a closed Strait of Hormuz. It changes by envisioning, insisting, and building institutions that align power with principle. That’s moral imagination.