‘My country, right or wrong’ 
Those are the famous words of US Naval Officer Commodore Stephen Decatur, returning from signing a peace treaty with Algeria in 1816. The phrase has been much discussed over the years, both for glorifying a brawny sense of patriotism, and, of course, for justifying chauvinistic positions in defence of one’s country’s policies even when they are wrong.
While this phrase may have sounded poetic at the time, today we can no longer afford to equate wrong with right just because it is our country that says so. The purpose of the law is not to defend both right and wrong; its purpose is to spell out and live by what we objectively define as right. It is the duty of every citizen to defend one’s country when it is right, but also to criticise and to correct it when it is wrong.
We are unfortunately witnesses to multiple devastating wars today — Israel’s wars in Gaza and in Lebanon and Russia’s war in Ukraine being foremost on our minds. In every dispute or conflict, each side can claim to have their justification, whether we agree with it or not. But the purpose of war cannot be to singularly impose one’s own definition of right on others through the uncontrolled dealing of death and destruction until we no longer hear a peep. If we pursue that logic to its conclusion, we would enter World War III and nobody would be around to say who was right or wrong.
Seeking to impose one’s own right on another person’s supposed wrong does not usually end well. Even the greatest power in the history of the world was not able to impose its interpretation of right on the peoples of Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq. Instead, Americans had to come to the realization that their right may indeed have been a wrong.
Americans visit Vietnam with contrition, trying to mend the wounds of the past. If John McCain had been visited in his prison camp by a Vietnamese and an American doctor together, could this have healed wounds and set the fine senator on an earlier path of healing without the years of death and destruction?
What I am saying is that war — where we unavoidably believe we are in the right — is never the right path to take, as America’s record has shown over the past 70 years. The only useful path is that of compromise. For this to work, we must accept that perhaps we are not entirely in the right and the other side also has valid grievances. We will not get all we want, but neither will the other side. As a result, though, our homes are intact, the water is still running, and we are able to feed even the poorest.
Compromise is the bandage that heals wounds. Without it, we are simply on the road to perdition.
Imagine if today, in Gaza, Israeli and Palestinian doctors came to treat the injured on both sides to heal the wounds that war has inflicted. The wounds in our hearts will then also be allowed to heal, and diplomats can take the same medication to heal the broader wounds of hatred and misunderstanding. We cannot bear to see more glorification of the death and destruction we all know is wrong, no matter how one side tries to justify it. If my country is wrong, then I need to correct it. If the world is wrong, I need to help fix it. The United Nations was established so that we could take a broader perspective than just our countries, and do right on a global scale.
It so happens that in 1871, a US senator named Carl Schurz re-used Commodore Decatur’s phrase, but he had visibly learned a lesson that many of us must still learn: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
• Hassan bin Youssef Yassin worked closely with Saudi Arabia’s petroleum ministers Abdullah Tariki and Ahmed Zaki Yamani from 1959-1967. He led the Saudi Information Office in Washington from 1972-1981 and served with the Arab League’s observer delegation to the UN from 1981-1983.
