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Iran Paralyzes Us Barry Farber Can we quit kicking Europe around long enough to acknowledge that on at least one vital issue, we're the wimps and they're the steely realists? In Europe when country A is attacking, intimidating, threatening, subverting, or insulting country B and country B doesn't want a fight, Europeans say quite frankly, "Country A is spitting in country B's face and country B is pretending it's raining!" America hasn't achieved anything near that level of frankness or self-awareness. Look at Iran. We look far, wide, patiently, and persistently to find a "smoking gun" to prove Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. (I think he did and they were removed!) Now there's the question of whether or not Iran has been supplying weapons that are killing American soldiers in Iraq, and it's really not a question. The Edgewood arsenal could hardly find room to store all the smoking guns proving Iran's guilt. We know this. Every American serviceman and woman knows this. Everybody over the age of 10 from Jerusalem to Kabul knows this.
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So, what do we do?
We pretend it's raining. We don't want a war with Iran. We fear we can't handle a war with Iran. And given the broadening dissatisfaction with the way American fortunes are going in Iraq we don't dare whisper the thought of a war with Iran. So instead of standing up, throwing shoulders back, and pointing the bony finger of indignation between Iran's eyeballs with unquivering warnings, we instead pretend, "Hey. We're really not sure about this." And what is it we're not all that sure about? There's no doubt many of those devices that are killing Americans are from Iran. We're plenty sure about that. So, as we wipe the "rain" out of our face we wail about the difficulty of pin-pointing precisely who in Iran is authorizing the running of those weapons from Iran into the hands of the terrorists.
In other words, we are asked to believe that "it may not be the actual government of Iran. It may just be some wicked rogues doing it on their own." Clausewitz and Machievelli left out one important rule of running a nation.
Never presume the public is as ignorant of reality as you want them to be! Do our leaders think we who look and learn and know and care and discuss and argue; do they really think we sit around and parakeet the Washington line that, "For all we know, the government of Iran is as upset as we are about all those bombs crossing the border into Iraq, so before we take any rash measures we have to make sure it's not some rogue element within Iran doing that treachery on their own"?
Interesting, indeed. When German forces plunged into the Soviet Union in June of 1941, how many seconds do you suppose the Kremlin wasted wondering, "Let's see. Is this something the Hitler Nazi German Berlin military is doing, or are some rogues in the Reich acting alone?" And when Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, did any of our stunned leaders in Washington say, "What a minute. Is this something the Tokyo authorities authorized?" And when North Korean communist troops invaded South Korea in June of 1950 did President Harry Truman tell his team, "We really can't act until we make sure who in North Korea is behind this thing?" True, dictatorships vary in their degrees of totalitarian control. Old communist Albania was an airtight Stalinist dictatorship where a man went to jail for seven years for saying, "You know; there are no tomatoes in the marketplace," and Christians who dared celebrate Easter quietly at home had the problem of getting rid of the colored eggshells before opportunistic neighbors spotted them in the garbage and turned them in to the secret police for a reward. Old communist Yugoslavia right next door, though also a dictatorship, felt almost like a free country by comparison. They allowed possession of foreign newspapers and visits from relatives in Western countries. Iran may have a parliament and dissident students speaking out, but you may be sure a rogue robin does not flutter from limb to limb without the full knowledge of the Iranian mullahs; particularly on a matter as serious as provoking America. Our leaders know that. Do they hope we don't?
By the age of 5 we abandon the defense that, "I didn't do it. My hand did it!" For grownups in Washington to offer that defense to Iran, a nation that doesn't deserve it and didn't even ask for it, betrays a nudity of policy that goes beyond weakness. In 1937, Japan was ravaging China. America was neutral. An American gunboat, the Panay, was deliberately attacked on a clear day on the Yangtse River by a Japanese fighter plane. President Roosevelt was horrified. He knew how unprepared America was for war. The Japanese government offered one of its many, "So sorry!" excuses pretending they didn't know the boat was American. The Japanese had no way of knowing a newsreel photographer was on board who captured the entire attack on film. It showed the slow plane, clear day, and a garrison-size American flag no Japanese pilot could have missed. When President Roosevelt learned such a film existed and was about to be put aboard a Pan American China Clipper headed for America to be shown to movie audiences coast-to-coast, he did something no dictator has to do. He got on the phone and begged the photographer to self-censor the film. Don't send it. Don't even mention it. Forget the whole thing. That was the only way Roosevelt could honorably pretend to believe the Japanese explanation and eliminate any need for America to respond militarily to the Japanese attack. To the amazement of nobody in 1937 (It would amaze almost everybody today!) the photographer with his actuality coverage of the Japanese attack snug in his camera said, "Yes, Mr. President," and quietly put his scoop-of-a-lifetime in his valise and consigned it to a dresser drawer in his bedroom when he got back home. What was clever for Roosevelt, is craven for Bush. Iran would have to curb its aid to those killing Americans in Iraq if Washington back-channelled proof of their guilt to Teheran and quietly showed the Iranians where the bear sat in the buckwheat, punctuating the lecture with a firm warning. Are we paralyzed by Iranian mullahs or Nancy Pelosi? Rain in the face can be refreshing. But it's got to be real water. And no fair covering up the chemical analysis when it arrives from the lab.
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