Hostage Aftermath

Between preparing for Passover and celebrating the holiday, the last few weeks have been hectic and I have not had the time to sit down and blog. I have been meaning to write about the Iran standoff and the hostages, but the truth is that there was not much to actually write about. Clearly the "press conferences" and "heartfelt" letters from Seaman Turney fooled absolutely no one in the West and for that reason I did not feel like perpetuating the farce by writing about it. And then, in what many took as a complete surprise, Ahmadinejad released the hapless Brits from their captivity with a well-timed, "Open Sesame!"

I have already spoken about the background to this entire episode in my last post, so I thought I would provide a summation in five parts in this one:

I. Iranian Actions

Personally, I found it interesting that from the first televised clip that was aired by Iran on their Arabic language TV station Al Alam, they focused in on the only female among the 15 hostages, seaman Faye Turney. Clearly, this was a bid for sympathy and an attempt at leverage in the negotiations with the British. No doubt the Iranians thought that spotlighting the lone female would pressure the British government to make concessions and apologize. No doubt they calculated that the British public would not be able to withstand either the humiliation that was being meted out to her nor would they have the stomach to stand tough when a woman was involved.

Basically, Turney became an Iranian weapon that was supposed to soften up the Brits. I think that this was a miscalculation on their part, because it only angered the Brits more and provided the sailors with more sympathy than they would have had otherwise. In effect, she became the poster child for this incident. That she was the centerpiece of the Iranian propaganda effort is evidenced by the fact that she was paraded in a headscarf and wearing baggy Iranian clothing. If ever there was proof needed that the wearing of the veil is a coercive act, then this was certainly it. The fact that she was presented with a chador was clearly the Iranian way of showing that she had been truly captured and was under their control ("domesticated").

It demonstrated that, like a bird being banded by biologists, she was the object of Iranian control fantasies and being used to send the message that the Iranians were calling the shots. This was further reinforced when she appeared the following day donning a Palestinian style headscarf - a potent symbol of the political theater that was being played out and representative of the degree to which the Iranians felt she was their most central propaganda tool.

Unfortunately for the Iranians their desire to show that they were in control backfired and came across as both heavy-handed and creepy. As an aside, I think that the fact that she was always shown with a lit cigarette in hand belies a desire to repulse the Iranian (and Middle East) people and to prevent them from overly identifying or sympathizing with her. One can only imagine how a male, let alone a female viewer in a place like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan digested those images. Perhaps as a morality tale of what happens to women when they occupy traditionally male roles?

II. British Reaction

It was as a Jew that I was particularly interested in what the British public's reaction to this entire episode would be. I say this because I believe that the British, perhaps more than any other group in Europe, have so completely turned their backs on their colonialist era and its legacy and embraced the notions of multiculturalism and the political correctness that goes hand in hand with it that they have became the epicenter - if not the source of - anti-Israel sentiment among the Left in Europe.

While Blair may have maintained the "special relationship" between Britain and the US, the British public has abandoned this path and are more likely to count Israel and the US as the source of all the world's evils than Iran. Unfortunately, the British public did not fail to disappoint. In editorial after editorial, the public and the media's ire was directed squarely at the Blair government and its "overly cozy" relationship with the Bush administration. As more than one British paper noted, none of this would have ever happened if the British had not gotten themselves involved in the "illegal" Iraq war and that no matter what the British hostages were going through it would most certainly never be half as bad as either Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib.

Clearly it was too much to expect that the reader’s comments to these articles would espouse British pride and patriotism while addressing the manifold inaccuracies of moral equivalency and false comparisons. After all, those serving time in Guantanamo were not carrying out a UN mandated mission, nor were they even in uniforms, for the most part (and thus not covered by the Geneva conventions). Based on the many anti-British comments written by ordinary Brits, it did not even seem to matter that the British soldiers were forcibly abducted from Iraqi waters. This simple fact is far less surprising if you believe that all "truth" is relative or that all governments lie and therefore the actual facts of the matter are irrelevant.

In the end the British proved no better than the Spanish, who allowed a terrorist act to affect the outcome of their national elections or the Italians, who have proven that they will unreservedly negotiate with terrorists and pay handsome ransoms to release their captured citizens. Actually, in some ways the British were far worse, because they could not even muster a wee bit of indignation.

As an aside: None of this bodes well for Alan Johnston, the BBC reporter who now has the dubious distinction of being the journalist who has been held hostage for longer than any other foreigner in Gaza. That he lived in Gaza and supplied the West with unabashedly favorable reports about the Palestinians does not seem to have inured him from this sort of treatment. The fact the British public could care less about their kidnapped soldiers, would seem to imply that journalists should go at their own peril. Apparently the message has been assimilated by the press corps and they are no longer venturing into Gaza.

Latest reports state that Johnston may already be dead – a fact that would fly in the face of countless news reports and op ed pieces that attempted to downplay this incident as an attempt to obtain government jobs or loot. While one might think that such a kidnapping would turn British public opinion against the Palestinians, I will certainly not be surprised if in the end it will all be either Israel's or America's fault. Almost on cue, the British National Union of Journalists voted today to boycott Israel!

III. Diplomacy

More than anything else, the Bush administration is routinely accused of being incapable of conducting diplomacy. I think that this is a gross overstatement and over-simplification of how diplomacy works. Certainly, this administration does not engage in the kind of “feel good” diplomacy that was common of the Clinton era, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that there is no give and take in all of these crises. I also would point out that although the Clinton diplomatic style was more camera friendly and photogenic, it was no more effective at achieving its goals than the Bush method. Besides, Clinton was also not averse to committing ground troops or lobbing missiles across the world when deemed necessary.

In the case of the British hostages, there are clear signs that the Bush administration played the cards that it was dealt with a relative degree of aplomb. For starters, the US administration provided its British ally strong verbal support, yet the President said absolutely nothing until a week had gone by. If nothing else, this shows some discipline and an understanding that words could escalate matters precipitously. When the President did speak, it was at the point where the British had decided to ratchet up the pressure a bit. Perhaps for this reason it is unsurprising that he call the British soldiers by the politically charged term “hostages”.

Lest you think that I am giving Bush way too much credit for NOT saying something or for using the word that everyone was thinking, I think we should look at what was happening on the ground at the same time. First off, the Iraqi government suddenly chose to release the sole Iranian in its possession. While the Iraqis claimed that this had nothing to do with the ongoing crisis, this seems more than a little disingenuous. The timing was more than a little suspect and there was no reason that this person could not have been released at a later time. That the Iraqis were the ones to announce this provided the British and the Americans with the cover (plausible deniability) they needed to maintain that they were not negotiating with the Iranians on this matter. Together with an unwritten promise that the Iranians in American custody would receive consular visitation rights, this was the carrot.

At the same time, the US ordered the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf from the Eastern Mediterranean. For those unfamiliar with the Nimitz, it is the flagship of a class of supercarriers that are the largest warships ever built in history. Moreover, these ships do not just travel along alone with their airplanes, but are accompanied by a large armada of ships called a “strike group”. The announcement that the Nimitz would join two other supercarrier fleets in the Persian Gulf should clearly be seen as a message to the Iranian establishment that there was a time limit to their shenanigans. Clearly, this was the stick.

I would like to point out that this is not the first time that this type of dynamic has played out. One of Al Qaeda’s most consistent demands in the run up to 9-11 was that the United States needed to remove its troops from the Arabian Peninsula. For years the Saudis and Americans said that they would do this and that the US troops were only there to protect the Saudis from the Iraqis. Yet, on the cusp of the Second Iraq War the US moved its Central Command to Qatar – farther from the fighting. The only reason that I can think of is that this was meant to be a concession to Al Qaeda meant to undercut the argument that they were only acting out of defense of Mecca and Medina.

Incidentally, the British were also willing to play a bit of hard ball with the Iranians as was evidenced by the firefight that took place in the shadow of the Iranian consulate in Basra. The subsequent Iranian use of firecrackers in front of the British embassy in Tehran should also be seen as part of this same tango.

IV. Aftermath

Now that some time has passed between the benevolent “gifting” of the British hostages by Ahmadinejad, two things have become clear – this episode was meant to send a chill down the spine of the Western powers and that the stakes in any future confrontation are much higher.

Only days after the release, the Iranians cemented their position by stating that they had initiated large-scale uranium enrichment in defiance of the international community. Clearly the purpose of the hostage-taking was meant to serve as a reminder that if the West wants to confront Iran on the nuclear issue through international bodies such as the UN, that there will be a price to pay. I find it hard to believe that the Iranians were unaware that the British would undertake the revolving presidency over the Security Council that began on April 1 and that this will be immediately followed by the US presidency starting in May.

In terms of future confrontations, the death of several British soldiers in Basra on the day that the hostages were released was doubtlessly meant primarily to reinforce this point to those in decision-making posts while further undermining British resolve. Since then, it seems that both sides are happy to continue this covert war and both the actions and allegations streaming across both sides seem to indicate that we are closer to the beginning than to the end. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I think that events as disparate as the continued unraveling of Gaza, Hizbollah bravado, Syrian preparations for a summer war, protests in Basra and Moqtada al Sadr’s pressure on the Iraqi government all have many causes but primarily one root.

V. Philosophizing

I think that the Iranian willingness to once again take hostages can only be understood as representative of a worldview that is based on philosophical perspectives that Westerners find completely foreign. This is not meant to imply that Westerners or Western powers have not or would not be able to take hostages, but it does imply that hostage-taking has become the signature Iranian tactic and together with suicide bombing has become identified with the Middle East.

If anything underlines the difference between Western philosophic thought and non-Western philosophies, it has to do with ideas of liberty and the notion of individualism. Whereas in the West personal freedom is a value that needs to be cultivated and protected, in non-Western countries like Iran and much of the rest of the World, the individual’s desires are subsumed by the needs of the group. In fact, Mohammad Khatami, the former President of Iran has identified this distinction in his writings on political philosophy and criticized what he identified as the Western “unbridled individualism” and the, “belief that humans and their needs and desires are of central importance at all times.” From Khatami’s perspective, the very real threat of this philosophy lies in, turning “human beings into a new religion”.

Yet the danger inherent in the loss of individuality can most clearly be seen in the case of suicide bombers, who literally negate the individual for the sake of their societies in the way that certain species of ants and bees sacrifice themselves to protect the hill or hive. The taking of hostages actually accomplishes two interrelated goals – effacing the individual while using the individual as a weapon.

The former is the result of the hostage taking and effectively denies each individual their identity as they become subsumed to the group and are reconfigured as “hostages”, or the “the Americans”, or whatever tag their captors decide to pin on them. The latter results when the hostages are paraded before the "neutral gaze" of the cameras. Westerners watching on TV intrinsically identify with the hostages, imagine in their minds what they must be going through and feel empathy. For non-Western people who think in essentialist terms, the differences are chasms that far outweigh the similarities. Basically, tribalism trumps humanism.

From a strictly tactical point of view, the Western preoccupation with the well-being of individuals is a liability in a time of war. From a strategic perspective, it is the Western focus on each and every individual that is the source of its strength and innovation. After all, it is individuals unfettered by custom and tradition who will not only fight but also innovate to preserve their freedom.