Sunday, April 1, 2007
Jeff Jacoby: The smell of irresolution
For that matter, why would Iran have chosen this moment to seize 15 British sailors and marines? One of the hostages was forced to write a letter urging the British government "to start withdrawing our forces from Iraq and let them determine their own future." But Britain has been withdrawing its forces from Iraq, reducing troop levels from 40,000 in 2003 to just 7,100 as of February. Prime Minister Tony Blair recently announced that 1,600 more troops will be pulled out this spring. So what was the point of Iran's unprovoked ambush?
The answer in both cases is that this is how totalitarian aggressors react to faintheartedness.
"In Middle Eastern warfare," writes retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters in the New York Post, "a classic tactic has been to retreat in the face of strength, but to attack when your enemy withdraws or shows signs of weakness." British troop pullouts and congressional cut-and-run votes prompt not fewer outrages and less mayhem, but more. The smell of irresolution doesn't satiate the totalitarians' appetite; it makes it keener...
Blair is in a box. The world condemnations of Israel for "overreacting" to the kidnapping of its soldiers this summer have left him in the lurch and immasculated any potential reaction -- not that Europeans have ever worried about any rank hypocrisy, but the trouble is that many Englishmen believe it. Europe's lost sense of itself has left them vulnerable, not just to threats from within, but threats from without as well.
Post-nationalist Europe has forgotten that there's a reason beyond ego for nation-states to maintain their dignity and their self-respect in the eyes of the world. Weakness or the perception thereof draws the wolves. Kidnapped soldiers is an affront that must be dealt with harshly. The damages are far beyond wasted time and back-pay on the part of the kidnapped. The calculation for a response must include the price of loss of respect and a growing and earned contempt on the part of an unsympathetic world. Future attack, loss of respect for British business, British friendship (who needs an ally that won't even defend themselves)...and at home a growing insecurity on the part of armed forces who don't feel their nation will stand up for them, and the deliterious effects of contempt for the state when felt by large numbers of the populations...the threads that bind a society to a state and to each other beging to lose their cohesion.
In its contempt for all things "nationalistic," and a lack of appreciation for the wonders our Western civil society provides for us, Europe is ill-prepared to deal with a situation like this, and the repurcussions go far beyond the comforts of a dozen or so sailors and their families.
Update: Not sounding good: Ministers seek deal with Iran for captives
The Sunday Telegraph has learnt of plans to send a Royal Navy captain or commodore to Teheran, as a special envoy of the Government, to deliver a public assurance that officials hope will end the diplomatic standoff.
The move, which was discussed at a meeting of Whitehall's Cobra crisis committee yesterday, came as Downing Street officials explicitly cautioned against hopes of a speedy outcome and said that families of the hostages should prepare for the "long haul".
The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and the Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, have been warned that the impasse may develop into a long-term stand-off. Privately, officials are speculating that the crisis could continue for months.
The renewed search for a solution was given greater urgency when a senior Iranian official said that moves had begun to put the 15 British captives on trial...
In the case of Iran's capture of the British sailors, I would argue that the irresolution that the Iranian rev guard smells is within their own regime, not without.
Nick Burns claimed that the US was getting "pinged" for negotiations with Iran (http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=81042); and there has lately been more open debate among different factions of the regime.
A response from the west that is too tough, will give the IRGC and its hardline supporters more power, not less.
Esther's fixed link, here.