The peaceful resolution of the crisis between the United Kingdom and Iran regarding the 15 British sailors and marines Iranian naval forces captured three weeks ago should give all of us in America pause to consider what course of action our government should take vis-a-vis its own ongoing confrontations with Iran over Iraq, and over Iran’s nuclear program. It should, that is, but it probably won’t, at least if a review of the op-ed pages of various American newspapers is any indication.
Despite the success that diplomacy and behind the scenes negotiations played in obtaining the release of all 15 members of the British military held by Iran, editorial after editorial in many American newspapers today reads like a doppelganger of similar editorials written about Saddam Hussein in the Fall of 2002. From Bill O’Reilly to the Editorial Boards of your local newspaper, the message conveyed is the same. To America’s Pundit Class, Iran is Enemy #1.
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Here’s a few samples to give you a flavor of the reaction to Iran from America’s “opinion leaders:”
[T]his is a big win for Iran. And it hurts me to say that. Because Iran is basically humiliating Great Britain and the United States by saying, “Look, we’re going to grab those guys any time we want to grab them. We’re going to do whatever we want to do. Look at them. They don’t have any power left. We’re the power in the [Persian] Gulf.” That’s what they’re saying, Ms Ambassador [Nancy Soderberg, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, O’Reilly’s guest]. “We’re the power in the Gulf. Iran”
Iran has pulled off a tidy little success with its seizure and release of those 15 British sailors and marines: a pointed humiliation of Britain, with a bonus demonstration of Iran’s intention to push back against coalition challenges to its assets in Iraq. All with total impunity. […]
You would think maintaining international order means, at least, challenging acts of piracy. No challenge here. Instead, a quiet capitulation.
The gloating that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad engaged in following his nation’s taking 15 British sailors and marines captive will be short-lived.
Ahmadinejad put on a show this week before the release of the British military personnel, who were seized in the Persian Gulf on March 23. He pinned a medal on the Revolutionary Guard commander who seized the British captives and then “pardoned” them in what he claimed as an Easter gift. They arrived home in Britain on Thursday. […]
If anything, the incident further reinforces Iran’s status in the international community as a rogue state that could very well develop nuclear weaponry in the not-so-distant future.
Iran is chafing under pressure to end its uranium enrichment program, so it’s not implausible to think the hostage maneuver was ginned up for March 23 to overshadow the U.N. Security Council vote the next day. The council voted 15-0 to impose sanctions, but the headlines were all about Iran snatching the Brits.
Iran might have miscalculated in its act of belligerence. Countries that have urged diplomacy for dealing with Iran might not be so willing to do so the next time.
For not banding together as free people, we all risk hanging individually as Tehran and others prepare the noose from which the weak and indecisive will hang.
This isn’t a war any of us can escape. It’s a war that can only be won or lost.
The desire for bloodshed is palpable, is it not? Look at the one word and its variants that these pundits and op-ed writers use over and over: humiliation. Britain was humiliated. America was humiliated. The West was weak. We backed down. And the singular advice given to our government by these wise men and women? You could label it the “death before dishonor” approach, I suppose. But in effect, it is nothing more than a thinly disguised call for the use of American military might, rather than the use of diplomacy, to resolve another conflict in the Middle East. The happy ending to the British “Hostage Crisis” only seems to have infuriated those who pray for war, rather than peace, with Iran.
It’s true that some media outlets are calling the resolution of this crisis a victory for the “talking, not bombing” approach to conflict resolution. Perhaps the best, and most concise of these pleas for direct negotiations with Iran I have seen published online was not the work of any distinguished columnist, former ambassador or politician, but this simple, eloquent letter to the editor written by a Mennonite Minister and published in the New York Times:
To the Editor:
Re “Iran, the Vicious Victim,” by Max Hastings (Op-Ed, March 30):
The Mennonite Central Committee has a 17-year history of working in Iran. In February, it helped lead a delegation of American religious leaders to Iran, where the group met with ordinary Iranians and with religious and political leaders, including the current and former presidents. Several things stood out:
¶The Iranian government is not monolithic. Many Iranian officials and citizens would welcome mutually respectful dialogue with the United States. American threats and pressure undermine their efforts.
¶The United States and Iran share strategic interests. Both want a stable Iraq. Both want to limit the influence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Both are concerned about the illicit drug flow from Afghanistan.
¶Iran’s declared policy is that it is seeking nuclear energy for peaceful purposes only. While analysts can speculate about Iran’s true intent, this much is clear: talking directly with Iran would place the United States in a much better position to address Iran’s nuclear program and a range of other concerns.
(Rev.) Ron Flaming
Akron, Pa., March 30, 2007The writer is the international program director for the Mennonite Central Committee.
A clear, straightforward recitation of why it is in America’s interest to enter into negotiations with Iran over Iran’s nuclear program, the situation in Iraq and even the issue of terrorism. It makes a great deal of sense, does it not?
Sadly, it’s much too reasonable for anyone in the Bush administration to ever advocate, much less implement. Diplomacy and engagement with Iran might be the course of action that both Jim Baker and Nancy Pelosi can agree upon, but those words aren’t in George W. Bush’s lexicon. Instead, his administration has taken pains over the past several days to insist that Iran’s release of its 15 British captives changes nothing:
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration said Thursday that the release of 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran for two weeks created no new openings in dealing with Tehran, and it urged U.S. allies to return their attention to enforcing new sanctions. […]
President Bush spoke Thursday to Prime Minister Tony Blair, though the White House said nothing of substance about their discussion. But both the White House and Blair immediately resumed their insistence that Iran meet the UN Security Council’s demands on the nuclear issue and cease supporting attacks in Iraq.
Vice President Dick Cheney, the most outspoken critic of Iran in the administration, repeated his description of Iran as a dangerous nation in search of a nuclear weapon. He told Rush Limbaugh, the radio talk-show host, that “you can imagine the extent to which the Iranians would be heartened” if the U.S. withdrew from Iraq.
Taken together, the administration’s public statements indicated a decision not to treat the release of the naval troops as a potential diplomatic opening but rather as evidence of Iran’s unpredictability.
“We just don’t see it as a new opportunity,” one State Department official said.
The hard liners in the White House seem to be back in charge again. Proof can be seen in this thinly sourced story by ABC (the credibility of which was discussed at length by Glenn Greenwald at Salon, here and here) warning, once again, that Iran is only months away from producing nukes. Relying on a single, unnamed and unidentified source, it has all the hallmarks of a classic disinformation piece on the imminent danger posed by Iran, the likes of which we’ve seen frequently in various American and British news outlets over the past 2 years.
Greenwald eviscerates the shoddiness of ABC’s journalism on this story, and reminds us that Brian Ross, one of the authors of this alarming “narrative” has a past history of supporting the Bush administration’s war propaganda, in the reports he filed in 2002 conflating Saddam with Al Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorists back in 2002. No matter. Bush has already cited ABC’s story at a press conference on as evidence of Iran’s perfidy.
Further proof of Bush’s continued hard line toward Iran can be found in this story in Tuesday’s edition of the Washington Post, in which a US State Department flack promotes once again the administration’s oft discredited claim that Iran is the primary supplier of arms to the “terrorists” in Iraq:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has growing evidence of Tehran’s involvement in destabilizing Iraq, with more sophisticated Iranian weapons being found, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday.
Jim Jeffrey, principal deputy assistant secretary of State for Near East Affairs, said Iranian interference in Iraq had intensified in recent months. Tehran denies this.
“It’s growing, it’s quite frightening. We are getting much more accurate indirect fire and we see this as both Iranian munitions and possibly Iranian training,” Jeffrey said in an interview with Reuters.
He said over the last couple of months many more recently manufactured Iranian rockets and other “modern munitions” had found their way into Iraq. He did not provide figures.
“It is various caliber mortars and rockets and better, what we call, fire control,” said Jeffrey, whose main dossier is Iran at the State Department.
Things didn’t turn out quite the way Bush was hoping they would in the resolution of the “Iranian/British hostage crisis” but that doesn’t mean he intends to change his ways. All options remain on the Bush table with respect to dealing with Iran, including the possibility of nuclear war. All options except one, that is: peaceful negotiations with Iran. It’s already been discarded by this President as a scrap suitable only for the trash heap of history.
Sorry, Reverend Flaming. Regardless of what Jesus preached, peacemakers are not considered blessed by this administration. Bush worships a God of War, not a Prince of Peace.
