Shadi Hamid was my foil on a 2021 panel at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. I presented a paper arguing that the U.S. was supporting a rogue's gallery of expansionist states in the Middle East, that their actions were no less malign than the Iranian influence they purported to fight, and that it would be better for Washington to adopt a neutral stance toward the region, with the motto, "First, do no harm." Hamid, calling himself an "interventionist," argued that the U.S. has a moral obligation to stop atrocities because its enemies are so much worse.
Hamid pointed to the Russian-Iranian intervention in Syria while I pointed to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict and the Saudi-Emirati intervention in Yemen. The world has provided many more sad examples since then. I can point to the destruction of Gaza, which Hamid himself calls a genocide; Hamid can point to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of the most brazen power grabs of the century. But as a Palestinian friend texted me after watching an Oxford Union debate on the Middle East, "This isn't just a conversation for the sake of enjoyment. It's also our lives."
