The excrement has only gotten thicker in the past 24 hours. Today, sailor Faye Turney becomes a pawn, and the two sides ossify in their respective courses.
In the Case of the Manipulated Mother, Iran has been playing cat and mouse on both sides of the game. In the global media, Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki promised yesterday on TV to release her. Today, that promise has become conditional, and Ms. Turney's children are being publically disciplined for their government's "incorrect attitude". Specifically, it appears that if the U.K. brings the issue before the UN Security Council, as planned, she will not be released.
On Ms. Turney's side, Iran seems to be playing games as well. The sailor was induced to write two letters - one to the Iranian people, apologizing, and one to her family, published online after release by the Iranians. The spectacle is sickening.
Iran in this sideshow has been too clever by half. While Britons may have agitated for compromise to save Ms. Turney while she was but seen through a TV screen darkly, I think they will toughen in the face of obvious manipulation. Her Majesty's loyal subjects will keep a stiff upper lip and support Her Government's suit to the international community - even if it means keeping Faye Turney in headscarves and Persian prison chow for the duration of the crisis.
Meanwhile, the ongoing posturing and gesturing has left the two sides more firmly committed to their respective trajectories. In the common tongue, they are playing chicken. The U.K. is going before the Security Council, and calling on their allies to present a solid front againt Iran. In this regard, the EU is walking a fine line. Even while a French oil company is facing charges of bribing the Iranians for a big oil deal, EU negotiators are continuing talks with Iran on nukes, Javier Solana issued a condemnation - both of Iran's actions and of any potential use of force, and a French carrier fleet in the region is rumored to have sent a fighter plane on a flyover of the Persian Gulf. In addition, UN chief Ban-Ki Moon met with Mottaki today; the two have become familiar, with frequent meetings lately over the nuclea issue.
The U.S., of course, is as ready as ever to support John Bull. There's a big debt to be paid there, and there are estimates of 10,000 troops on the Iranian border with Iraq, as well as two aircraft carrier groups in the Gulf. However, as a Guardian blog commenter quoted in Slate notes, the U.K. may not be ready for a fight of any kind, and it would be politically humiliating for them to call in U.S. support. I suspect it will be left for Iran to fire the first shot: both the U.K. and U.S. have too little political capital in the region to pull the trigger.
What has changed least throughout the crisis is the inexplicability of Iran's conduct. From the outside, we see a great deal of sound and fury, but what it signifies remains anyone's guess. Much has been made of the arrest of five Iranian operatives in Iraq accused of helping the resistance, but Iran maintains the two events are unconnected. We cannot forget as well that President Mahmood Ahmadinejad (whose blog has been silent so far) was supposed to visit New York City to address the Security Council this week. The visit was canceled on Saturday. The British soldiers had been seized the day before.
If any reader has a reasoned guess to explain Iran's behavior, please comment - or write a more lengthy piece, and Global Review will publish it.
2 comments:
A corrollary:
If we take the experience of Faye Turney as a morality play, the lesson is clear: women should not be in the military. No doubt many of the 14 men have children at home, and no doubt Ms. Turney's role was not considered "front line". But now that we have been thrust from armchair consideration to prison-cell negotiation, is it not abundantly clear that a woman - especially a mother - is a liability to her country in this most traditionally male of roles? This may not be "right", but it is true, especially in a world where most conflict is cross-cultural. The reaction of Iranians to a woman prisoner is to use her femininity and maternity against her and against her country.
More important is the reaction in Western minds: we agree with the Mad Mullahs that a woman ought not to be made to suffer the privations of war and separation that we can stoically accept our men suffering. Our resolve is weakened because our own value system betrays us: we can justify male soldiers suffering for a principle - but what principle can we protect higher than a mother's instinct to be with her children? If Britain's servicemen aren't upholding some kind of civilization, what are they upholding? Simply the power and will of one country. That's cheap; more, it's unsustainable.
We the West have allowed Iran to put us in the position where we have to choose between virtues we hold dear. Better to respect the horror that is war and allow the male to suffer some privations uniquely, even as females do in other spheres.
Update: Blair spoke today, story here. He said that Britain refuses to negotiate, point blank.
"The important thing for us is to get them back safe and sound, but we can't enter into some basis of bargaining," Blair said. "What you have to do when you are engaged with people like the Iranian regime, you have to keep explaining to them, very patiently, what it is necessary to do and at the same time make them fully aware there are further measures that will be taken if they're not prepared to be reasonable."
I.e., we're not going to negotiate, but if we did, we'd have to use very small words.
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