The Middle East Redux

It has become very evident that Iran intentionally seized the 15 British troops in hopes of escalating tensions within the Middle East and as an added bonus, hostile actions against the British would command respect for Iran from the Muslim world as well. This can be the only logical explanation for their insane actions. If that was not a contradiction of terms, then I do not know what is.

Iran purposefully watched and waited for the chance to board a ship with the sole intention of taking captives. My outlook on this situation is they purposefully selected a British ship, bypassing any possible act of war against the United States. Under any other circumstance, this would be a laughable scenario, Iran would have attacked our ship in a heartbeat; however, their intelligence would have shown that Congress would not back any military action against Iran, except in this specific case, American’s being taken captive. Their taking and holding American citizen’s hostage in 1979 is still a sore topic with far too many American’s; Congress would have not only permitted military action, but bowing to pressure from their constituents, demanded it.

After the 1979 Iran hostage fiasco, we should have responded with a decisive and lethal military response, punishing Iran for taking Americans hostage, showing them it is not wise to do again in the future. This is a common mistake we have made after many attacks against the sovereignty of America and the lives of our citizens; it is one we have paid dearly for. We must insure this never happens again.

Iran knew they needed an act of defiance to place them in a better position of respect among the Muslim world. They have been playing their present defiance card to the limit with the United Nations, now major players, including Russia are beginning to put pressure on them. They needed to play their trump card, the Iranians fared well in 1979, but as I mentioned, did not want to push President Bush too far and the British were going to be their hostages this time. The target had to be one of the big boys, yet, one weary of war, tired of the losses and financial aspect and ready to begin to withdraw. Iran did not want just any port in a storm. They needed face, respect and they had to demonstrate to Iraq and Syria they were not afraid.

If my thoughts on this are correct, then their whole warped logic may backfire. On the other hand, I could be totally wrong; they may have intentionally boarded the British ship in hopes of provoking a direct military confrontation, bringing Syria into the picture and the entire Middle East erupting into a nuclear volcano.

If Iran’s intention is to provoke a full-on war in the Middle East, then we can safely assume the United Nations and everyone else are correct, they do possess WMD. We must also remember that the President of Iran has openly called for the destruction of the state of Israel, with that in mind we can safely assume where their initial launch would be aimed. Of course, we have patriot missile batteries in place to protect Israel, but there have been so many conflicting stories on their success ratio that I would not want to bet the farm on them to protect me. One thing in this whole warped scenario is certain, if a WMD is launched at Israel, they will respond in kind, and have every right to do so.

We can also expect world-wide terrorist activities, open attacks and possible dirty bombs and/or chemical weapons. This would not be the traditional military engagements, it would be dirty and it would be globally devastating.

One last possibility we cannot discount, they could be just plain clueless, no idea of what they were doing, no thoughts on the possibility of repercussions, no one was targeted, keystone cops running around with guns and the British lost the coin toss.

We can only hope sanity prevails and Iran comes to their senses, but if we have learned one thing from the Middle East, always expect the unexpected.