patrick.net

On Jan. 12, 2015 Iran seized ten American sailors on two small US Navy boats and broadcast their humiliation to the world.

When releasing them the following day, Iran claimed the US government had apologized for their intrusion into Iranian waters. Washington’s subsequent tergiversations (or equivocations) about the boats’ location looms small against the humiliation swallowed. The previous evening, the President of the United States had spoken on the State Of The Union to Congress as if relations with Iran were just fine.

In fact, by seizing US military members, Iran had committed a casus belli — a classic cause for war under international law. It felt safe in doing so recalling that the US government had acquiesced to its year-long seizure of the US diplomatic mission in Tehran 1979.

In 2001, Chinese fighter planes damaged an American reconnaissance aircraft over international waters. Its crew, had no choice but to land in China, where they were held prisoner for 11 days until President Bush apologized. Most recently, the US held back as its diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya was attacked and its ambassador murdered. Most recently, it also let pass Iran’s firing, literally, a shot across the bow of a US aircraft carrier.

Disproportion between commitments and the capacity — indeed the willingness — to back them up has been the defining characteristic of the US government’s international relations for a quarter century. The US formula is to place token forces in situations in which they are over matched, expecting that hostile powers will not do their worst for fear of “tripping a wire” that would bring on an overwhelming American response.

Thus, US officials have habituated themselves to substituting “trip wire” forces and promises that they don’t intend to keep. This, in place of the moral resolve and military power that would be required to carry out successful policy in the face of opposition. Decades during which American military power has decreased while the US government has short shrifted commitments — solemn, implied, or inherent, like those to one’s own military or diplomats — have shopworn that formula. US officials and the “community” of academics, think tanks, and media around them seem unaware that their credibility has declined even as the rest of the world’s capacity and willingness to press their agendas has increased.

Iran’s and President Obama’s cooperation in America’s latest humiliation will shape the outcome of crises that loom in our relations with Russia and China.

China warns that it will enforce its control over the waters and artificial islands it claims. The US government acts as if China has no serious military purpose for those islands. If it thought otherwise, what good would it do to fly or sail near them? Just to spite the Chinese? It also acts as if China does not mean it when it warns against trespassing. If the US took the warnings seriously, it would enter those areas with forces capable of fighting their way out. What, reasonably, can be expected of sending practically defenseless sailors and airmen into harms’ way? Especially as the Chinese look to the precedents set by Iran, why should they not capture Americans?

Alas, the US government has placed hostage crises in our future.

More: http://atimes.com/2016/01/on-seizures-of-us-personnel-by-foreign-powers-codevilla/

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