| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Iranian Foreign Policy: Another Day, Another Kidnapping
So, in conclusion, it is imperative that the world not give in to any
Iranian demands to secure the release of the 15 British hostages and--
Whoa. Wait a minute . . . Breaking news . . . According to Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the 15 kidnapped British sailors are
to be released. Damn it! No, wait, don’t misunderstand, that’s a good
thing. It’s only that the column that I was just sprucing up for
publication about this whole affair now has to be rewritten. I know,
that sounds insufferably self-centered of me, but these columns don’t
write themselves, they’re quite a lot of work.
On second thought, however, maybe the column doesn’t need to be
totally rewritten since most of the salient points it made are still as
applicable as ever. Let’s see . . . A change here, a tweak there . . . Yep,
I think this’ll work. We’ll begin with what was to be the second
paragraph:
This is just the latest Iranian hostage crisis, of course, as opposed
to any of the previous Iranian hostage crises. You know, like the last
time Iran kidnapped some British sailors, which was back in 2004. Or
the time they held Americans hostage for 444 days during the Carter
administration. Or any of the many times their fully-funded and fully-
supported proxies, the Hezbollah terrorists, took American, Israeli or
other hostages.
This latest Iranian hostage crisis must have Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad positively brimming with nostalgic
reminiscences of those heady days when he was a student and was
among those (allegedly) who pulled off the original and the mother of
all Iranian hostage crises, the takeover of the American embassy in
Tehran. Ah, to be young again!
But it ain’t half bad to be middle-aged, either, especially when you
have terrorist tendencies and you get to be the president of a country
that is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Talk about
having your cake and eating it too.
So why have the Iranians done this now? Granted, this is Iran
we’re talking about and taking hostages is part of the political culture
of this radical rogue Islamic regime. But we can be fairly certain this
wasn’t just a spontaneous act of hostage-taking on the part of the naval
forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who were momentarily
overcome by the spirit of Islamic terrorism. There is more likely some
elaborate strategy behind it that is calculated to give Iran some sort of
advantage as it butts heads with the civilized world over nuclear and/or
other issues.
A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal laid out a number of
possible motivations:
1.) It could be payback for -- or even as ransom for the return of --
Ali Reza Asgari, Revolutionary Guards commander, who apparently
defected recently and is said to know a great deal about Iran’s nuclear
program.
2.) The Iranians might believe that Tony Blair is willing to pay a
steep price to secure the release of the hostages before he leaves office
later this year.
3.) The Iranians might want to bargain with Blair’s presumed
successor, Gordon Brown, whom they suspect might take a softer line
about the whole thing.
4.) Iran might be trying to create a rift between Britain and the
U.S. by offering to trade the British hostages for Iranians that the U.S.
has recently detained inside Iraq.
5.) Iran may be seeking to draw Britain and the U.S. into limited
military skirmishes that they think could shore up domestic support
against widening popular discontent.
6.) Iran might hope that any threat on the part of the Bush
administration to actually do something would embolden the spineless,
Democratically-controlled Congress to pass legislation forbidding an
attack on Iran without Congressional permission.
7.) Iran might have still been angry over the recently released
movie “300,” which Javad Shamqadri, an art advisor to Ahmadinejad,
said is “part of a comprehensive U.S. psychological war aimed at
Iranian culture.”
Actually, that last one, number 7, was my theory and was meant to
be tongue-in-cheek since nobody would be crazy enough to start an
international incident over their reaction to a movie. Anyway,
whatever the reason for the hostage-taking, the more important issue
is what is anybody going to do about it and so far, other than a lot of
windy officials proclaiming their discontent and serious concern over
the matter, the answer appears to be little or nothing.
(Okay, now I’ve got to do some serious editing and deleting in this
middle section of the column. We’ll just skip down to this next part,
which is still very relevant.)
What about the British people? Are they clamoring for some sort
of forceful action to resolve the unjustified kidnapping of their
sailors? According to an ICM opinion poll for The Sunday Telegraph,
the resounding answer is no. Only seven percent are in favor of even
preparing for military action at this stage of the situation. Most back
the government’s position of continued diplomacy and fully a quarter
want Britain to apologize and ask for the captives back.
What can you call this other than pathetic? The British people don’
t seem to know who they are or what their values are anymore.
It’s like they’re a bunch of random people who just happen to be living
on the same rainy island together, but in terms of standing for
something or having some kind of national identity, they’re jolly well
clueless.
Do any of them particularly care when their young captive soldiers
get paraded around on camera and forced to make apologetic
confessions to a third-rate barbarian power? Does it bother them to see
one of their young women dressed up in Muslim garb and humiliated
in front of the world? How about their soldier forced to stand in front
of a map and illustrate for the world how he and his comrades had
illegally entered Iranian waters and express his understanding of why
the anger of his Iranian captors is so justifiable?
(Now, I suppose I need to delete the original paragraph about the
military action that needs to be taken since the crisis is over and--
Nope, I take it back. I’ll leave it in because it can still be argued that
military action should have been taken since Iran’s actions should
have been considered an act of war.)
Iran has one gasoline refinery in the entire country. The rest of
their gasoline comes from outside the country. So, the refinery should
be destroyed and the Iranian coast blockaded to prevent refined
gasoline from coming in from outside. That would bring Iran’s
economy, which is a basket case to begin with, to its knees in short
order and that’s the end of their hostage-taking for a long time to come.
It’s Military Strategy 101 and could be easily pulled off even by
those who slept through half the classes. The problem is there’s no
political or popular will for action due to the fact that Britain’s
populace has devolved into a mostly timorous and somnolent bunch
severely in need of remedial courses in Defending One’s Country and
Civilization.
(Okay, now comes what was to have been the final paragraph. I’ll
just leave it in as is since it conveys the uncertainty and frustration
with the situation and still makes a salient point.)
No one knows how long this particular Iranian hostage crisis will
last. It could be resolved by the time this piece is finished. Or come
Boxing Day, British newscasts might begin with, “This is day 278 of the
Iranian hostage crisis.” Either way, it appears extremely doubtful that
Iran will pay any meaningful price for committing what in any other
era would have been considered an act of war and would not have been
stood for. Therefore, expect more of the same. And if you think the
civilized world’s response is lame now, wait until Iran goes nuclear.
That’s it. Now to wrap up the rewrite with some comments about
the sudden news of the release of the hostages. Ahmadinejad said he
had “pardoned” the sailors as a gift to the British people. He also said
that this gesture was to mark the birthday of Islam’s Prophet
Mohammed and Easter.
Oh, please! Gag me with a spoon. Wouldn't you love to have ten
minutes alone in a room with that munchkin Muslim terrorist so you
could rearrange a few of his facial features and get the truth out of him
and maybe even get an apology for the never-ending trouble his
country causes the rest of the world?
We'll probably never know exactly why they kidnapped the sailors
to begin with or why they decided to release them now, but we do know
some other rather discomfiting facts. The West, and Britain in
particular, looked very weak in the face of what should have been
regarded as an act of war. The West has a serious problem right now
with civilizational self-confidence. It’s evidenced every day in a
thousand ways, particularly by its dalliances with extreme multicul-
turalism and its absurd tolerance in its midst of those cultures which
themselves have no tolerance of others and which actually seek the
destruction of Western tolerance.
Iran is still ruled by Islamic head cases, still seeks nuclear weapons,
still wants Israel wiped off the map, still seeks Middle Eastern
hegemony and will probably get away with their latest round of hostage-
taking without any serious consequences. There will be plenty more
analysis to come, but for now, suffice it to say that the West, and
especially Britain, did itself no favors in its timid handling of this latest
Iranian outrage.
So, in conclusion, it is imperative that the world not give in to any
Iranian demands to secure the release of the 15 British hostages and--
Whoa. Wait a minute . . . Breaking news . . . According to Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the 15 kidnapped British sailors are
to be released. Damn it! No, wait, don’t misunderstand, that’s a good
thing. It’s only that the column that I was just sprucing up for
publication about this whole affair now has to be rewritten. I know,
that sounds insufferably self-centered of me, but these columns don’t
write themselves, they’re quite a lot of work.
On second thought, however, maybe the column doesn’t need to be
totally rewritten since most of the salient points it made are still as
applicable as ever. Let’s see . . . A change here, a tweak there . . . Yep,
I think this’ll work. We’ll begin with what was to be the second
paragraph:
This is just the latest Iranian hostage crisis, of course, as opposed
to any of the previous Iranian hostage crises. You know, like the last
time Iran kidnapped some British sailors, which was back in 2004. Or
the time they held Americans hostage for 444 days during the Carter
administration. Or any of the many times their fully-funded and fully-
supported proxies, the Hezbollah terrorists, took American, Israeli or
other hostages.
This latest Iranian hostage crisis must have Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad positively brimming with nostalgic
reminiscences of those heady days when he was a student and was
among those (allegedly) who pulled off the original and the mother of
all Iranian hostage crises, the takeover of the American embassy in
Tehran. Ah, to be young again!
But it ain’t half bad to be middle-aged, either, especially when you
have terrorist tendencies and you get to be the president of a country
that is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Talk about
having your cake and eating it too.
So why have the Iranians done this now? Granted, this is Iran
we’re talking about and taking hostages is part of the political culture
of this radical rogue Islamic regime. But we can be fairly certain this
wasn’t just a spontaneous act of hostage-taking on the part of the naval
forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who were momentarily
overcome by the spirit of Islamic terrorism. There is more likely some
elaborate strategy behind it that is calculated to give Iran some sort of
advantage as it butts heads with the civilized world over nuclear and/or
other issues.
A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal laid out a number of
possible motivations:
1.) It could be payback for -- or even as ransom for the return of --
Ali Reza Asgari, Revolutionary Guards commander, who apparently
defected recently and is said to know a great deal about Iran’s nuclear
program.
2.) The Iranians might believe that Tony Blair is willing to pay a
steep price to secure the release of the hostages before he leaves office
later this year.
3.) The Iranians might want to bargain with Blair’s presumed
successor, Gordon Brown, whom they suspect might take a softer line
about the whole thing.
4.) Iran might be trying to create a rift between Britain and the
U.S. by offering to trade the British hostages for Iranians that the U.S.
has recently detained inside Iraq.
5.) Iran may be seeking to draw Britain and the U.S. into limited
military skirmishes that they think could shore up domestic support
against widening popular discontent.
6.) Iran might hope that any threat on the part of the Bush
administration to actually do something would embolden the spineless,
Democratically-controlled Congress to pass legislation forbidding an
attack on Iran without Congressional permission.
7.) Iran might have still been angry over the recently released
movie “300,” which Javad Shamqadri, an art advisor to Ahmadinejad,
said is “part of a comprehensive U.S. psychological war aimed at
Iranian culture.”
Actually, that last one, number 7, was my theory and was meant to
be tongue-in-cheek since nobody would be crazy enough to start an
international incident over their reaction to a movie. Anyway,
whatever the reason for the hostage-taking, the more important issue
is what is anybody going to do about it and so far, other than a lot of
windy officials proclaiming their discontent and serious concern over
the matter, the answer appears to be little or nothing.
(Okay, now I’ve got to do some serious editing and deleting in this
middle section of the column. We’ll just skip down to this next part,
which is still very relevant.)
What about the British people? Are they clamoring for some sort
of forceful action to resolve the unjustified kidnapping of their
sailors? According to an ICM opinion poll for The Sunday Telegraph,
the resounding answer is no. Only seven percent are in favor of even
preparing for military action at this stage of the situation. Most back
the government’s position of continued diplomacy and fully a quarter
want Britain to apologize and ask for the captives back.
What can you call this other than pathetic? The British people don’
t seem to know who they are or what their values are anymore.
It’s like they’re a bunch of random people who just happen to be living
on the same rainy island together, but in terms of standing for
something or having some kind of national identity, they’re jolly well
clueless.
Do any of them particularly care when their young captive soldiers
get paraded around on camera and forced to make apologetic
confessions to a third-rate barbarian power? Does it bother them to see
one of their young women dressed up in Muslim garb and humiliated
in front of the world? How about their soldier forced to stand in front
of a map and illustrate for the world how he and his comrades had
illegally entered Iranian waters and express his understanding of why
the anger of his Iranian captors is so justifiable?
(Now, I suppose I need to delete the original paragraph about the
military action that needs to be taken since the crisis is over and--
Nope, I take it back. I’ll leave it in because it can still be argued that
military action should have been taken since Iran’s actions should
have been considered an act of war.)
Iran has one gasoline refinery in the entire country. The rest of
their gasoline comes from outside the country. So, the refinery should
be destroyed and the Iranian coast blockaded to prevent refined
gasoline from coming in from outside. That would bring Iran’s
economy, which is a basket case to begin with, to its knees in short
order and that’s the end of their hostage-taking for a long time to come.
It’s Military Strategy 101 and could be easily pulled off even by
those who slept through half the classes. The problem is there’s no
political or popular will for action due to the fact that Britain’s
populace has devolved into a mostly timorous and somnolent bunch
severely in need of remedial courses in Defending One’s Country and
Civilization.
(Okay, now comes what was to have been the final paragraph. I’ll
just leave it in as is since it conveys the uncertainty and frustration
with the situation and still makes a salient point.)
No one knows how long this particular Iranian hostage crisis will
last. It could be resolved by the time this piece is finished. Or come
Boxing Day, British newscasts might begin with, “This is day 278 of the
Iranian hostage crisis.” Either way, it appears extremely doubtful that
Iran will pay any meaningful price for committing what in any other
era would have been considered an act of war and would not have been
stood for. Therefore, expect more of the same. And if you think the
civilized world’s response is lame now, wait until Iran goes nuclear.
That’s it. Now to wrap up the rewrite with some comments about
the sudden news of the release of the hostages. Ahmadinejad said he
had “pardoned” the sailors as a gift to the British people. He also said
that this gesture was to mark the birthday of Islam’s Prophet
Mohammed and Easter.
Oh, please! Gag me with a spoon. Wouldn't you love to have ten
minutes alone in a room with that munchkin Muslim terrorist so you
could rearrange a few of his facial features and get the truth out of him
and maybe even get an apology for the never-ending trouble his
country causes the rest of the world?
We'll probably never know exactly why they kidnapped the sailors
to begin with or why they decided to release them now, but we do know
some other rather discomfiting facts. The West, and Britain in
particular, looked very weak in the face of what should have been
regarded as an act of war. The West has a serious problem right now
with civilizational self-confidence. It’s evidenced every day in a
thousand ways, particularly by its dalliances with extreme multicul-
turalism and its absurd tolerance in its midst of those cultures which
themselves have no tolerance of others and which actually seek the
destruction of Western tolerance.
Iran is still ruled by Islamic head cases, still seeks nuclear weapons,
still wants Israel wiped off the map, still seeks Middle Eastern
hegemony and will probably get away with their latest round of hostage-
taking without any serious consequences. There will be plenty more
analysis to come, but for now, suffice it to say that the West, and
especially Britain, did itself no favors in its timid handling of this latest
Iranian outrage.