It’s hard to think that the Iran hostage ordeal was actually
37-years ago. At the time, I was in the
509th Airborne, based in Vicenza, Italy. We were briefly put on alert, but it only
lasted a couple days as the powers that be at the time opted to try another
route to rescue the hostages.
In the end, it was the change in leadership from then
president Jimmy Carter to the newly elected Ronald Regan that ended the
“crisis.” Now it appears we may again be
in for some brashness by the Iranian government.
I remember those days pretty well; they are what
psychologists call a “flash bulb memory.” Not unlike the “What were you doing
the day John Kennedy was shot?” question.
For me on the Kennedy thing, I was in my third grade class and
distinctly recall our music teacher running down the hall yelling “The
president’s been shot; the president’s been shot.”
And the Iran thing is also pretty clear. We were restricted
to the barracks and not allowed to make phone calls or basically do anything
for two days except eat meals. But that
soon came to an end as the US decided not to invade Tehran.
But now, the way the Iranians are acting, is sort of like
kicking a sleeping dog. There are a lot
of hotspots around the world right now, and just the other day I read an
article about being closer to World War III today than at any time during the
cold war. And, sadly, that may be very
true.
But here is the thing, the US has often put up with enough
of that kind of stuff until it had enough. Think Pearl Harbor. What happened there was that the US was
pushed beyond the brink. The result was
our entry into World War II and a huge shift in the balance of power between
the Allies and the Axis.
Right now, we have problems with: Iran, China, North Korea, and Guam. Not to mention a slipping image in Europe and
the Far East. Who’s to say where all of
that ends up?
Iran, I believe, is willing to push the US because the
powers there don’t believe we will do anything about it. Remember the line in the sand in Syria? There’s an old Monty Python movie that has a
disagreement between two forces and the one person says, “Don’t cross that
line,” and when the more belligerent person steps over the line, the other
person says, “Well, don’t cross that
line.” We are pretty much right there as
a nation today.
As a country, we used to be respected and to some extent
feared. Machiavelli would say “that it
is better to be loved, but that a leader must be able to do evil when
constrained.” Evil when constrained in
today’s society is simply having a backbone.
The US today doesn’t seem to have a backbone. In terms of body type, we much more represent
a jelly fish. The truth of the matter is
you don’t have to fight; you just have to make sure that your opponent believes
you will.
Right now, nobody believes we, the United States, will. We are viewed much differently than we were
even during the Viet Nam war. We seem to
have set aside Teddy Roosevelt’s suggestion that the US should “speak softly
but carry a big stick.” Instead today, we speak loudly and carry a big shtick. As a country we are no longer either loved or
feared. We just are.
Look at how we have treated our friends and
allies over the past few years. We have not supported our friends and have been
a bit of a paper tiger to our enemies. I
am not suggesting that we go bomb some people, which we are doing anyway. But there is no “fear” over what the United
States might do. We have effectively
been shoved into a closet and left to rot with the moth balls.
