The Limits of Both-Sidesism

When it comes to a question of whether the U.S. should aid and abet a government committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, there is one approach that is morally obvious.

Ross Douthat concludes his recent column on the war in Gaza this way:

Being cold-eyed and tragic-minded does not mean abandoning morality. But it means recognizing that often nobody is simply right, no single approach is morally obvious, and no strategy is clean.

Douthat presents this as the sober, balanced alternative, but it is really just a way to avoid taking a clear position on one of the more consequential foreign policy debates of the century. When it comes to a question of whether the U.S. should aid and abet a government committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, there is one approach that is morally obvious. The U.S. should have nothing to do with such atrocities, and it has an obligation to use its considerable influence with the government committing these crimes to put a stop to the slaughter and starvation. That begins with halting all weapons deliveries, as our own laws require in cases like this.