The Life and Times of Elliot Pike

There’s an interesting adage I’ve heard from time to time. It goes something like this: If you throw a frog into a pan of boiling water he will jump out, but if he sits in a pan of cool water and you turn up the heat slowly, he will remain until he cooks to death. Obviously it’s intended to describe human behavior—that we tend to ignore dire threats if they’ve been growing slowly and we’ve been getting used to them.

One example of this is the Avian Flu situation that I blogged about a couple days ago. Another is the Bush Administration and its policies toward Iran.

There’s a strange phenomenon happening today: people are ignoring the daily actions of the Bush Administration. It’s as though we’ve all resigned to the fact that we’re stuck with him for two more years, and there’s little we can do to stop him from running the Iraq War into the ground, so we just hope we can find someone better two years from now. Back in 2004 and to a lesser degree 2006 there was a lot of attention and outrage happening. That’s because the politicians and the media had something at stake: upcoming elections.

But this week’s news items really terrify me. Specifically, I was reading an article in Newsweek that freaks me out. It talks about last week’s abduction of an Iranian diplomat in Iraq. No groups have come forth to claim responsibility or to demand ransom. A central question is whether the the United States is responsible for the kidnapping.

We know a few facts about the kidnapping. It was done by a group of 20 gunmen wearing bulletproof vests and Iraqi National Guard uniforms, and they flashed official IDs before manhandling him into a car. Iraqi police gave chase, but to no avail.

Iran has pointed its finger squarely at the United States, and frankly there’s been no evidence to refute their accusation. From the Newsweek article:

At the embassy, the diplomat’s colleagues were furious. “This was a group directly under American supervision,” said one distraught Iranian official, who was not authorized to speak on the record. Abdul Karim Inizi, a former Iraqi Security minister close to the Iranians, pointed the finger at an Iraqi black-ops unit based out at the Baghdad airport, who answer to American Special Forces officers. “It’s plausible,” says a senior Coalition adviser who is also not authorized to speak on the record. The unit does exist—and does specialize in snatch operations.

The Iranians have reason to feel paranoid. In recent weeks senior American officers have condemned Tehran for providing training and deadly explosives to insurgents. In a predawn raid on Dec. 21, U.S. troops barged into the compound of the most powerful political party in the country, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and grabbed two men they claimed were officers in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Three weeks later U.S. troops stormed an Iranian diplomatic office in Irbil, arresting five more Iranians. The Americans have hinted that as part of an escalating tit-for-tat, Iranians may have had a hand in a spectacular raid in Karbala on Jan. 20, in which four American soldiers were kidnapped and later found shot, execution style, in the head. U.S. forces promised to defend themselves.

I’m disturbed by the fact that these actions are NOT all that unusual for President Bush. He’s the man who went into Iraq mostly alone because he likes the freedom of Unilateralism. The long history of Guantanamo Bay and of the other top-secret detainment facilities in other countries demonstrates that he has no problem operating outside of International Law or even our own Constitutional Law. He dismisses any concept of congressional or judicial oversight.

In a nutshell, this is very much his traditional Modus Operandi. If it looks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck…

“So what?” you may ask. Maybe our CIA found some certain evidence that this diplomat was responsible for trafficking weapons and explosives into Iraq. Maybe there was a reason for this detainment, right?

Again, I’ll leave it up to Newsweek to summarize:

At least one former White House official contends that some Bush advisers secretly want an excuse to attack Iran. “They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for,” says Hillary Mann, the administration’s former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs. U.S. officials insist they have no intention of provoking or otherwise starting a war with Iran, and they were also quick to deny any link to Sharafi’s kidnapping. But the fact remains that the longstanding war of words between Washington and Tehran is edging toward something more dangerous. A second Navy carrier group is steaming toward the Persian Gulf, and NEWSWEEK has learned that a third carrier will likely follow. Iran shot off a few missiles in those same tense waters last week, in a highly publicized test. With Americans and Iranians jousting on the chaotic battleground of Iraq, the chances of a small incident’s spiraling into a crisis are higher than they’ve been in years.

So here we are, our military outstretched to the point of exhaustion. Against a unified Congress and the advice of the experts in the Baker Commission, Bush is forcing this upcoming “surge”. We already have massive equipment shortages and are barely able to support out existing troops. Given our current military situation the idea of an armed conflict with Iran is inconceivable. And maybe that’s exactly why the media and the politicians don’t seem to be alarmed: because they can’t conceive of the possibility of a second-front war against Iran.

And yet Bush is dead-set against any diplomacy. His vocabulary doesn’t include the word “détente”. Instead it would seem that he’s Hell Bent on a big ol’ game of chicken.

Something I don’t think Americans realize: Iran would be much harder to neutralize than Iraq. I used to think that the two countries were comparable. After all, they’re spelled almost the same, they’re both neighbors, etc. But if you compare the countries they are vastly different. For example:

Physical Size

Iraq’s total area is 437 thousand km2. Iran’s area is 1.648 million km2 or 3.8 times—almost 4 times—as large. Iraq also had only 58 km of shoreline to Iran’s 2,440 km. That’s 42 times as much, meaning that Iran has an actual naval capacity. Maybe that’s to their detriment—more shoreline to defend. I’m not enough of an expert to know.

Population

Iraq’s total population is 26.7 million people. Iran’s is 68.7 million (2.5 times larger). Iraq’s per capita GDP is only $1,900 whereas Iran’s is $8,900. (4.6x greater)

My point is that even if are military was NOT exhausted and overburdened, a military campaign against Iraq would be a whole different ball game than our engagement against Iraq. Granted, we wouldn’t be planning to occupy Iran—just “neutralizing” them, but can you think of any better way of cementing and unifying Middle East hatred of the U.S.?

For all these reasons any sane person would conclude Bush couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to risk military action against Iran. And I think for that reason the media (save for Newsweek) and our Congress are staying relatively quiet about the subject. They don’t think it could possibly happen.

But when’s the last time Bush subscribed to any shred of reality?