David Frum has a point.
Softly Softly
Feelings have been running strong on Iran's capture and detention of 15 British sailors and Marines, and understandably so.
But let's have a moment of reflection before we act on those feelings or allow them to overwhelm our judgment.
There is a bigger prize at stake here: the mobilization of European public opinion to support united financial and economic pressure against Iran. America's greatest support in this mobilization has been the proclivity of the Iranian authorities for reckless and self-destructive actions: Holocaust denial conferences, kidnappings of Israeli soldiers, etc. Each of these actions has constrained European soft-liners to edge closer to the American view of the regime. Iran's latest unwise gambit once more forces Europeans to confront the radicalism, aggressiveness, and dangerousness of the Iranian regime. That is exactly the direction in which we should want them to remain focused.
Over-emphatic American rhetoric at this point would give the Europeans an escape hatch. Over-emphatic rhetoric would make America, not Iran, the issue. And under today's circumstances, such rhetoric would accomplish nothing. I've argued for a long time that the Bush administration will not strike Iran militarily. I may ultimately be proven wrong about that, but even if I am, they are certainly not going to do so in the next three months, while the surge in Iraq is proceeding. Warnings and threats now must be empty ones, and it is always best to refrain from those.
Iran paid a terrible price for holding 52 Americans hostage in 1979-80: US assistance to Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, assistance that helped Iraq to tear up Iran's under-equipped armies. I am sure the time will come for a reckoning with the hostage-takers of today. But this is not it. This is the moment for the US and UK to be all sweet reason - the better to force Europeans to align themselves more clearly now with the right side in the confrontations to come.
frum.nationalreview.com |
