The Loss of Honor and Strength
In an unfortunate turn of events, 15 U.K. servicemen have been captured by Iranian forces in the Persian gulf. It is certainly unfortunate because given the current tension between Iran and the West, an incident such as this one can cause the situation to boil over to full blown military conflict. Although the Iranians claim the U.K. naval and marine personnel had strayed into their territorial waters, the U.K. and Iraqi eyewitness accounts place the soldiers in Iraqi territorial waters. Regardless of the exact location of the U.K. personnel, it is clear Iran intends to use this as an opportunity for leverage in its ongoing debate with the U.N. and to further gain Arab sympathy by portraying the soldiers as Western invaders.
What is totally unexplainable is the reaction that the U.K. is having to this event. Oh boy, they are mad. Everyone in the U.K. government is really, really mad. They are so mad, they are having meetings. They are meeting each other. They met the Iranian ambassador, twice even! They are threatening that they are going to have a third meeting with the Iranian ambassador. Tony Blair has stated this situation is totally unacceptable. I am sure the Iranians are trembling in their pants!
So the big question is, when did Western nations turn into the school yard nerd that gets pushed around and bullied constantly? At least the U.S., to some extent, got out of the vicious cycle of appeasement and attacked a completely belligerent country. It took an appalling 12 years of Saddam Hussein giving the U.N. the finger until finally the U.S. took care of him. Unfortunately, the back bone of the American people has wained and the democrats are gaining control. It looks like appeasement is going to be fully in fashion by 2008.
What the West continually fails to understand about the Arab and Persian world is the concept of "honor and strength". The fear for the Iranian leadership is not equated at all with the consequences of their actions (as we in the West would think). Their fear lies in coming out of this situation looking like a fool and being weak. They will commit suicide as long as, according to their beliefs, it was honorable and they demonstrated they were strong. It is so deeply ingrained into middle-eastern society to such and extent that diplomatic processes that work fine in western culture, fail to progress anything through a framework of negotiation.
So when the U.N. slaps another round of sanctions on Iran, they do not respond by thinking "Woops, that nuclear program of ours sure has had some bad consequences. Let's rethink this". It is more like, "Those A-holes in the U.N. are trying to make us look like fools. Let's do something else to show them how strong we are". The fallacy here is that we are trying to shove Western logic into the mind of Arab and Persian society. It's the old square peg into a round hole conundrum.
Therefore, what should be done is that the West needs to take the same position of maintaining "honor and strength". This is the only way middle-eastern countries will arrive at some level of respect for the West. For example, the proper response that the U.K. should take would be in the form of an immediate ultimatum. I would suggest chopping the Iranian ambassadors head off and mailing it to Iran - it is horribly gruesome, but this is the type of society that you are dealing with. They will laugh at the U.K. if Tony Blair picks up the phone to say, "Can we please have our soldiers back". The ambassador's head followed by aerial bombardment of Tehran will go much farther in achieving an ultimate peaceful agreement. The Iranians would actually respect the U.K. more for an act such as the one I propose.
I have written this before that the West needs to deal with belligerent nations driven by Islamic fundamentalism the same way that someone trains a dog. You beat them over and over again until the behave themselves. In the end of the day, the dog respects you all the more for the discipline that you dished out. I only wish the Brits would role up a newspaper and start smacking the Iranian leadership as soon as possible. If not, the perception that the West has neither honor nor strength will continue to encourage those that wish for the West death and destruction.
What is totally unexplainable is the reaction that the U.K. is having to this event. Oh boy, they are mad. Everyone in the U.K. government is really, really mad. They are so mad, they are having meetings. They are meeting each other. They met the Iranian ambassador, twice even! They are threatening that they are going to have a third meeting with the Iranian ambassador. Tony Blair has stated this situation is totally unacceptable. I am sure the Iranians are trembling in their pants!
So the big question is, when did Western nations turn into the school yard nerd that gets pushed around and bullied constantly? At least the U.S., to some extent, got out of the vicious cycle of appeasement and attacked a completely belligerent country. It took an appalling 12 years of Saddam Hussein giving the U.N. the finger until finally the U.S. took care of him. Unfortunately, the back bone of the American people has wained and the democrats are gaining control. It looks like appeasement is going to be fully in fashion by 2008.
What the West continually fails to understand about the Arab and Persian world is the concept of "honor and strength". The fear for the Iranian leadership is not equated at all with the consequences of their actions (as we in the West would think). Their fear lies in coming out of this situation looking like a fool and being weak. They will commit suicide as long as, according to their beliefs, it was honorable and they demonstrated they were strong. It is so deeply ingrained into middle-eastern society to such and extent that diplomatic processes that work fine in western culture, fail to progress anything through a framework of negotiation.
So when the U.N. slaps another round of sanctions on Iran, they do not respond by thinking "Woops, that nuclear program of ours sure has had some bad consequences. Let's rethink this". It is more like, "Those A-holes in the U.N. are trying to make us look like fools. Let's do something else to show them how strong we are". The fallacy here is that we are trying to shove Western logic into the mind of Arab and Persian society. It's the old square peg into a round hole conundrum.
Therefore, what should be done is that the West needs to take the same position of maintaining "honor and strength". This is the only way middle-eastern countries will arrive at some level of respect for the West. For example, the proper response that the U.K. should take would be in the form of an immediate ultimatum. I would suggest chopping the Iranian ambassadors head off and mailing it to Iran - it is horribly gruesome, but this is the type of society that you are dealing with. They will laugh at the U.K. if Tony Blair picks up the phone to say, "Can we please have our soldiers back". The ambassador's head followed by aerial bombardment of Tehran will go much farther in achieving an ultimate peaceful agreement. The Iranians would actually respect the U.K. more for an act such as the one I propose.
I have written this before that the West needs to deal with belligerent nations driven by Islamic fundamentalism the same way that someone trains a dog. You beat them over and over again until the behave themselves. In the end of the day, the dog respects you all the more for the discipline that you dished out. I only wish the Brits would role up a newspaper and start smacking the Iranian leadership as soon as possible. If not, the perception that the West has neither honor nor strength will continue to encourage those that wish for the West death and destruction.
posted by Joey Goze at 5:07 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home