The Power of Restraint

Sometimes it is the actions we don't take

Some of the most important letters and emails I write are the ones I never send.

I spend many sleepless nights playing out conversations I decide, upon morning reflection, I should not initiate.

When I tally the mistakes I’ve made over the course of my life, it’s far more often for the words I've said or actions I’ve taken than the times I chose to let moments pass without response. I’m not alone. Abraham Lincoln famously wrote letters in the heat of emotion that he put aside and later categorized as “never sent or signed.”

Today, as the details of yesterday’s Iranian military action against Israel come into greater focus, I desperately hope that we will once again see that power can often be demonstrated through restraint.

It’s a lesson the world needs to heed more generally.

These are obviously very tense, unsettling, and tragic times in the Middle East. And as hard as it might seem to believe, things could get even worse. Once initiated, military action has a way of quickly escalating. War is a force that is very difficult to contain. History is full of many tragic games of tit for tat exploding in ways that none of the combatants intended or wished.

The wholesale slaughter of the First World War is perhaps the most salient example.

When one is in a fight, it is easy to see any action by your enemy as provocative. That is why it is essential to have friends and allies to help you gain perspective. With his public statements and his administration’s leaks to the press, it seems clear that President Biden is attempting to play that role with Israel now by advocating for restraint.

The fact that the Iranian attack was launched from Iranian territory is indeed a grave development. But that it was so thoroughly and effectively rebuffed should be considered a victory in and of itself. It also could be a foundation upon which to build a robust regional and global resistance to Iranian aggression.

Being restrained often in fact takes more courage than acting. It can be unpopular and an easy target for demagogues to denounce.

The previous president embodies recklessness. Impetuous is his middle name. His words and deeds are designed to inflame passion, even to the point of inciting violence. He appeals to the basest of peoples’ fears.

In contrast, Biden understands that what matters is where we end up, not what makes us feel good at the moment. He has a way of not getting enmeshed in the nanosecond-driven nonsense that pervades the ever-shifting morass of our social-media-shaped information ecosystem.

We have been increasingly conditioned by our technology and our society to react instantaneously — a comment, a tweet, a text — without pausing to assess impact.

There are moments and events that demand a leap into action. But you had better think through every contingency of what might happen. America can point to our recent failures in Afghanistan and Iraq as cautionary lessons.

Now is a time for diplomacy. Now is a time for resetting and reimagining. Now is a time to reinvigorate our preparedness and defenses. Now is a time for restraint.

Restraint is not a sign of weakness. It can be the ultimate exercise of strength.