ONCE BRITAIN RULED THE WAVES. NOW IRAN DOES.

ONCE BRITAIN RULED THE WAVES. NOW IRAN DOES.Barry RubinJerusalem Post, April 3, 2007 Why is Iran being so aggressive? Why is Britain being so weak? And what is the wider meaning of Iran’s seizure of 15 British navy personnel from Iraqi waters in this new hostage crisis? It is no accident that Teheran is doing everything possible to humiliate Britain. The two countries’ political cultures are not only out of sync, they are operating on different timelines altogether. Britain and the West may no longer believe in imperialism, but Iran–along with most Middle East regimes, opposition movements, and publics–does. Remember the War of Jenkins’ Ear? In 1731, Spanish sailors boarded a British vessel in Spanish waters (which it was entitled to do), and cut off the ear of Captain Robert Jenkins of the Rebecca, which they were not. It was one cause of a war between the two countries. And in 1862, after the murder of a British merchant in Japan went unpunished, the British navy bombarded the capital of the warlord responsible…. In those days, the Western powers were far stronger than those of what we nowadays call the Third World. Britain and France…were ready to remind tyrants of that fact. Sometimes, this leverage was used for…reasonable purposes; other times, it was employed for the sake of greed and territorial acquisition.… This era is long gone, and to a large extent that is a good thing. But perhaps the pendulum has swung too far into a failure to appreciate that power and force are often required, especially against “haughty tyrants,” an apt description of Iran’s rulers… The turning point, of course, was in 1956. Who better embodied that fight against haughty tyrants than Anthony Eden, perhaps even more than Winston Churchill? Eden raised the call to battle against the fascists in the 1930s and warned tirelessly against where appeasement was leading. It was Eden who as prime minister in 1956 secretly worked with France and Israel to overthrow the Middle East’s new—and it turned out archetypal tyrant—Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser…. For so conspiring, Eden was reviled and driven out of office. Yet, in retrospect, wouldn’t it have been better if Eden’s effort had succeeded? And isn’t there some parallel between Eden and Prime Minister Tony Blair—a man who, whatever his mistakes, has striven to uphold the cause of freedom against forces which make Nasser look mild in comparison? What is this latest incident in retaliation for? The mutilation of a sea captain, or murder of a merchant on his way to appreciate the beauties of a Japanese temple? No, the British navy personnel were taken hostage in retaliation for the arrest of Iranian government-sponsored terrorists caught in the act in Iraq. From the Iranian side, of course, humiliation of the West is precisely the goal. Iran is not, moreover, striving for equality, but superiority for its own side. It wants to show, as the revolution’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, once famously said, that the United States and the West in general “cannot do a damn thing.” It is the radical Islamists (and remaining radical Arab nationalists) who want to show that they are the ones with the “gunboats,” or rather hijacking airplanes, to keep up with current technology, who can make explosions in Western cities without fear of suffering meaningful retaliation. In contrast, the West seeks to prove that it is nice. It seeks to apologize, to make reparations, to act as the weaker party… Meanwhile, imperialism has switched directions, running now from east to west. And if that is already so without nuclear weapons controlled by Teheran, what do we have to look forward to? At least up to now, the gap in power that leaves the West the weaker side has not been technological, but rather psychological. It isn’t just a matter of gun-power, either, for the West refuses to use a force as potent as the battleship or aircraft carrier—its economic might. But economic, as well as military, supremacy is being conceded to the extremists and the dictatorships. And thus, British navy personnel—like American diplomats a quarter-century ago—are seized and their government is to be made to apologize. The woman among the prisoners is forced to wear an Islamist headscarf to show which culture is to prevail. The West is having trouble distinguishing between imperialism and self-defense, but this is not the first time that has happened, is it? [Poet James]Thompson wrote: “Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves.” But will they be dhimmis?
budsimmons

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