Part One: The Backdrop to Operation Praying Mantis
Part Two: The Fallout from Operation Praying Mantis
The one-day war marked the change of relationship between the US and the Arab community. In the eyes of the Iranians and the Arab community as a whole . . . the U.S. had over-stepped it’s boundaries. It was one thing to have U.S. Navy ships in their waters. Cargo ships would be understandable . . . but imagine how we would feel if Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia all had warships crammed in the Gulf of Mexico (which is about 10 times the size of the Persian Gulf) . . . I imagine we would all be suspicious and uncomfortable. This was mildly tolerated and reluctantly understood to be a prerequisite to having American business interests and money.
However, to have a civilian oil platform attacked, especially when U.S. intelligence showed who the real culprits were, was another thing altogether.
The U.S. had gone from being a “protector” of American ships and business interests in foreign waters. To being the “police” of the waters that are over 8,000 miles away. The judge and the jury. In the eyes of the Arab community . . . the U.S. went from being a tolerated nuisance to a threat who was flexing it’s muscles.
Overnight the U.S. military presence went from next to nothing to $50 billion a year in 90′s to a full-scale occupation costing more than $132 billion a year in 2005.
This build-up along with the catastrophe of Operation Praying Mantis has turned the public sentiment among the Arab community against the United States. Again . . . put ourselves in their shoes . . . if any Arab country put $132 billion a year into the Gulf of Mexico to “police” our waters . . . how would we feel? You can easily see how in these 19 years since . . . Arab attitudes towards America has reached a tipping point of hostility.
Below is the story of Aslani (around fifty years old) in bits and pieces and quotes. The story of one man who was pro-America but like many others, turned towards reserved and open hostility.
Aslani has worked on the oil platforms for over 30 years and is probably close to what we would consider upper-middle management. He was on the oil platforms as Iraq bombed them almost daily during their 8 year war. And was in the Gulf during the 9-hour battle in 1988 between the U.S. and Iranian Navies.
“I believe the U.S. government and the people are different, but sometimes the government magics the people.” He says that the Americans that boarded his platform during that 9-hour confrontation wrote ethnic obscenities on it. He asks why the Americans act the way they do. “We like freedom and democracy, but we need to build it ourselves.”
Moderates within Iran are aware that the more extreme elements of the government considered the attacks a “blessing” because “it provided an excuse for the more radical elements of the government to make it more authoritarian. The U.S. attacks were aimed at the Iranian decision makers, but they found their real target in people who were ambivalent about the regime.”
“We didn’t like the U.S. intervention in 1988 because it was hostile. The government then used this hostility in propaganda, which allowed them to forget their own crimes”. He then tells of a bigger disappointment, “The U.S. is a superpower, like the father of a family, and we expect a better understanding of cultures.”
He wants to know why the American people “are not more aware of the kind of chaos and long-term war they started in Iraq.” He asks if we have any “idea about what’s at stake.” During Aslani’s interview he shared that his facilities are still a military target. Instead of Iraq, it’s now Israel that has threatened to attack to put an end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
I’m not suggesting that Iran is without blame. Nor that the U.S. is fully at fault. With any conflict things always devolve into a cycle of exclusion that begins with name-calling and political posturing, which usually devolve further into a cycle of violence.
What I am suggesting is that things are way more nuanced and multi-layered than our government and media will ever allow. Labeling all Iranians as extremists or terrorists misses the humanity of many Iranians who are simply as ambivalent as we are. Threatening with military action also has the opposite effect and only exacerbates an already tense situation.
It’s no wonder that many Iranians and those in the Arab community have turned to the extremism of terrorist organizations and to a lesser extent that of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
What we need to do as Americans is realize that we have created many of our current problems.
Militarizing Afghan farmers in our fight against Communist Russia only to leave them hanging when we got tired of fighting created the vacuum for the Taliban to come to power on the back of our un-loyalty to them when they needed us both. Consequently, we are now being attacked with our own weapons by people that used to be our allies.
Supporting Saddam in his war against Iran gave him the weapons he needed to attack Iraqi Kurds in the North, the Kuwaitis, and the United States in both of our invasions.
We can not be arbitrary about our foreign politics. We can not pick and choose who we want on our side depending on the year and conflict . . . based off of what we are interested in at that particular moment. We need a larger perspective.
Attacking Iraq is not the answer. Attacking Iran is not the answer. Farther removed from the Arab conflict . . . attacking North Korea is not the answer. It troubles me that North Korea has a far more militant and militarized leader than Iran, Syria, or Iraq ever had. And yet we are choosing to fight battles for the sole purpose of protecting American oil interests.
What we don’t realize is that by continuing our aggressive policy of military muscle flexing and trade sanctions . . . we are further creating economic and political instability that extremists use to their advantage by gaining public support and new members to their agenda.
If we laid down our weapons and encouraged an open and fair trading relationship . . . both communities (the West and the Arab) would benefit. The influx into the economy would primarily benefit the Iranian people. Which would in turn do wonders to changing the perception of Americans. It would also put pressure on the government to take more moderate stances in it’s policies. The influx of business and capitalism would have a huge role in keeping things accountable.
It’s not black and white. It’s way more gray than we think. And in many cases we are the “bad” and not the “good”.
[tags]Oil+US, History of Oil, United States+Oil, Iran, US+Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, United States+Iran, Iran+Oil, Oil, Persian Gulf, Iran+Iraq, Battle of Midway, Operation Praying Mantis, Yom Kippur War[/tags]
9 Comments:
“And yet we are choosing to fight battles for the sole purpose of protecting American oil interests.”
That’s quite simplistic. And if that is truly the main problem, we should be drilling more for oil in our own areas – off the coast of FL (where there are NO oil platforms), ANWR, and other places that have been identified, within our own borders, as having a large potential.
The ways in which our involvement in the middle east have escalated in the past six years is due to one event and one event only, and is COMPLETELY unrelated to oil.
There are also other important points to pre-9/11 history regarding US involvement in the area. Not the least of which is the Soviet influence in the region, and the degree to which the media-celebrated withdrawal in Vietnam required a different approach to fighting Soviet aggression throughout the world.
You also imply that relations with Iran were just peachy before 1988, by omitting any discussion of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1980 and the events that led to that.
And you also fail to point out a positive aspect of Preying Mantis – that the pressure on Iran led to the end of the Iran-Iraq war.
I agree with you that things are not black and white, but by trying to oversimplify the problem, you oversimplify the solution. These problems are nearly sixty years old and have more to do with the US intervening in internal Iranian politics as a measure against communism than anything else.
Capitalism is simply not possible without the basic guarantees of rights that can only be secured with some level of democracy. We should certainly encourage increases of democracy and capitalism in Iran. A good way to encourage that is to encourage other democratic societies in the region – which, if Afghanistan and Iraq were to succeed long-term, would put tremendous pressure on Iran to change from within. But nobody expected Japan or Germany to be stable and self-sufficient after four years, yet our society’s level of patience ran out a couple of years ago.
With Iran’s current involvement in Iraq, though, and their militaristic rhetoric combined with their pursuit of nuclear technology, things remain very complicated. Add on top of that that the rest of the middle east sees the will of the US wavering in Iraq, and nobody wants to take the US seriously.
But if you think that just opening up fair trade with Iran will solve things, I’d say you need to think again.
Josh,
This is good stuff here. I’d never heard of this situation that escalated things in such a manner, but it makes sense. Especially when you drive the point home with the Gulf of Mexico example.
derek. it’s obviously way more nuanced than the opinion of a 26 year old suburban american can give in less than a page of typed words.
i apologize if it came off like i assumed that it was simplistic.
my only point was . . . that we carry some of the burden of error. “we” (along with “they”) have created as much as we have solved. attempting to solve the violence in iraq with violence of our own with a regime change . . . has led to what we have now. chaos. anarchy. and an utter collapse of all that is civilized. violence begets violence.
so now WE have backed ourselves into a corner with iraq, iran, and the middle east at large. because of our takeover . . . we now can’t leave without leaving behind everything that WE started. if we do leave then its the same as when we left the afghans in their conflict with russia. we get terrorism delivered by the hands of our own weapons 20 years later.
and i agree that much of our “War Strategies” evolved post-Vietnam into something else. and that much of it was designed to counter Soviet/Communist threat. i fully recognize that our dealings with Iran, Afghanistan, Venezuela, and many other Latin American countries were in direct correlation to Soviet threat.
but as you can see . . . 20, 30, 40 years later we will deal with the consequences of our blind and arrogant policies and postures towards countries that don’t agree with American democracy.
my simplistic point was that what are we creating with today’s policies? the terrorists and enemies of the future.
todays battles only lead to tomorrows problems.
which is why battle is never a reliable and peace-leading option.
i understand that stuff goes way back. but most historians agree that in post 1988 (praying mantis) things in the gulf changed. perception changed. and american hate from the arab region snowballed.
With Iran in particular, the major shift occurred in 1979. Part of that was due to Carter’s pressure on Iran to extend human rights, at a time when Iranians already viewed the West as meddlers (due to US/British meddling after WWII).
Then the Iranian Revolution happened, in an attempt to throw off US/British meddling and install an Islamic theocracy instead of a puppet monarchy.
It was in 1979 that terms such as “the Great Satan” began being applied to the US.
If you ask me, I think problems really started in the 1950′s. We took the British approach of Imperialism during that time, though more subversively, and installed puppet rulers instead of helping those countries move towards a true democracy.
Sometimes battles do lead to peace, though. We can certainly point to areas of WWII that resulted in lasting peace. In general, the best options for long-standing peace are democracies that guarantee basic human rights.
All of this is ignoring the basic problems that surround the hatred of the Muslim world towards Israel, and the subsequent hatred of the US as a result of our support for Israel. Against that kind of hatred, and without dealing with that directly, it’s hard to see any option that leads to peace.
Which is why the “lay down the weapons” argument falls apart. The US could do that, go home, and be relatively safe from the Muslim world (except for some terrorists). But Israel could not. Which is why, sometimes, displays of weakness (withdrawal from Vietnam, and the current pressure to withdraw from Iraq) only entices enemies to attack further.
I’m not sure what to think about this whole series of posts, but one thing is sure: this picture is awesome
eric. pwned.
derek. i agree with you assessment of imperialism borrowed from the british, borrowed from the romans, borrowed from the babylonians, borrowed from the syrians. and on down the line.
as far as arab hatred of the US . . . the converse could be true as well . . . most of it could also be attributed to the US hatred of its enemies. most christians hatred of palestine. most christians hatred of the taliban. most christians hatred of saddam. most christians hatred of Ahmadinejad.
against that kind of hatred, it’s hard to see any option for that lead to peace.
which is why hatred and violence is a cycle.
and i would submit that shows of force are oftentimes seen as weakness. those who attack usually do so out of a position of fear. is it not the stronger and wiser one who can turn the other cheek?
misleading the american public and the world about WMDs, staging an aircraft carrier and declaring “mission accomplished”, arbitrarily firing good attorneys, leaking CIA operatives, . . . amongst countless others . . . could be seen as weakness.
The primary difference is this, and it was evident in the more recent Israel/Hezbollah conflict.
Look at each side. If you pick one to lay down their arms, would the other cease hostilities? The answer shows you where the hatred truly lies.
The greatest displays of weakness from the US come from turning tail and running away. Osama bin Laden often refers to the US withdrawal from Vietnam in particular on this topic. Stick with examples from history, not liberal talking points.
these aren’t liberal talking points.
i don’t even like the liberal agenda.
stick to gracious discourse.
I was referring to your last paragraph. I didn’t intend to be un-gracious. Just pointing out what it sounded like. When people start making lists like that, to me, it signals the end of rational discussion. I’d rather not start rebutting that last paragraph, because what I tend to find is that people who make lists like that don’t want to discuss the finer points of those issues.
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