An excuse for war: Neocons and the Iranian hostage crisis

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As Libby mentioned yesterday, neocon leader Bill Kristol has argued that Iran should have been threatened with war over its capture of 15 British sailors and marines. Although he talks about avoiding war -- the only way to avoid war is to be tough, he suggests -- what he actually supports is a policy of threat-based engagement with Iran that could, and perhaps should, lead to war. Does Kristol think the U.S. should go to war with Iran? How could such reckless engagement not be taken to be a prelude to war? If he supports being tough, he must support following through on the threats and going to war.

Regardless, Kristol thinks that the hostage crisis, including apparently its diplomatic resolution, was "a real humiliation for the British" that also "strengthened the worst forces in Iran by making them think they can push the West around". And he's not alone. Others on the right, the neocon right, have made that very same point. One of them is noted Kristol cause célèbre John Bolton.

In a piece in the Financial Times, also published at the AEI website -- I will mention a few points here, but do check it out for further insight into the neocon mind -- Bolton argues that the release of the hostages, Iran's "gift," was "a political victory" for Iranian President Ahmadinejad and other Iranian hardliners: "Against all odds, Iran emerged with a win-win from the crisis: winning by its provocation in seizing the hostages in the first place and winning again by its unilateral decision to release them." He claims that "the incident was deliberate and strategic," "a low-cost way of testing British and allied resolve".

In Bolton's view, the British and the allies failed that test. Bolton blames the British for "surrender[ing] without a shot fired in self-defence". He blames Prime Minister Blair for not being confrontational and for pursuing "discussions" with Tehran. He blames the United Nations and the European Union for doing nothing. And he blames the U.S. for remaining silent, though it did so, as he acknowledges, "at Britain's behest".

The result is an "emboldened" Iran -- "it probed and found weakness." And "[t]he world will be a more dangerous place as a result". After all, "it is even less likely there will be a negotiated solution to the nuclear weapons issue," and Iran now "has every incentive to ratchet up its nuclear weapons programme, increase its support to Hamas, Hizbollah and others and perpetrate even more serious terrorism in Iraq".

Let me make two points in response:

1) Iran may or may not feel "emboldened," but the fact remains that the 15 sailors and marines were returned safely to Britain. Either diplomacy ("discussions") worked or Iran realized it couldn't hold them indefinitely without suffering the consequences of what could be deemed an act of war. Either way, Britain achieved its desired outcome without resorting to the threat of war and consequentially to an escalation in its already tense relationship with Iran, or to another act, such as the threat of further sanctions, that could have contributed to escalation.

Kristol and Bolton, inter alia, may argue that Britain (and, with it, the U.S.) should have been tougher with Tehran, but what would this have meant? Aside from risking the lives of the 15 sailors and marines, a tougher response would have contributed to an escalation of the situation. Yes, Iran started it -- the capture of the sailors and marines was a blatant act of escalation -- but it hardly follows that a reckless act should be followed by a reckless response. If that's the game, then war is inevitable. And, indeed, that seems to be precisely what Kristol, Bolton, et al. want. But, again, what should Blair have done? Should he have threatened a military strike on Iran? Should he have made the first move? It's one thing to threaten -- and it ought to be remembered that many of those pushing for war have never actually been to war, hence the term "chickenhawk" -- it's quite another to follow through on threats. What if Iran hadn't blinked in response to a threat? Or what if Iran had responded to a threat with yet more escalation?

And yet I have no doubt that Britain considered all options, including the ones that would have appealed to Kristol, Bolton, and their ilk, before choosing to pursue "discussions" and asking the U.S. to back off. It presumably chose a course of action that it deemed to be most likely of success (the release of the hostages and the peaceful resolution to the crisis). It may be easy to second-guess world leaders like Blair from the cozy confines of the AEI or PNAC, but the real world, which neocons tend to see as some sort of lab experiment for the realization of their armchair ideology, is rather more complex than their worldview can handle.

2) Bolton argues that Iran will now be less likely to accept "a negotiated solution to the nuclear weapons issue". He qualifies this, however: "not that there was ever much chance of one." This is revealing.

Kristol, Bolton, and their warmongering allies do not think that a diplomatic resolution to the Iranian nuclear crisis is possible. They may talk about peace, but they envision a future, a near-future, of war. The U.S. "came closer to war with Iran this week," as Kristol put it, but they do not lament that fact -- if indeed it is a fact. They see war with Iran as inevitable and they desire war sooner rather than later. Which is to say, they have every interest in promoting escalation. They wanted Britain and the U.S. to be tough on Iran in response to the hostage crisis not because such toughness would prevent war in the long-run but because it would accelerate the escalation to war in the short-run.

In short, they want an excuse for war. This is why they played up those unsubstantiated allegations that Iran was arming Iraqi insurgents and militias. This is why they play up the threat of Iran's nuclear program. And this is why they find such fault with how the Iranian hostage crisis was handled and resolved. It was just the sort of excuse they were looking for.