On Tuesday, a group of ten American service members on a training mission in the Persian Gulf were detained by Iran. Upon receiving the news, Secretary of State John Kerry called his counterpart in Iran to help secure the Americans’ release. This was all over the news over the past few days here in the US and, in traditional media outlets, it was usually accompanied with a standard denunciation of Iran. In more extreme cases, the event was described as an act of aggression that demanded a response. For instance, Senator John McCain, that perpetual fount of wisdom, described this incident as another example of “Iran’s provocative behavior.”
Unfortunately, what was missing in much of mainstream media coverage of this event was any meaningful consideration of the facts. In reality, the US ships apparently drifted into Iranian waters, and were intercepted by the Iranians as a result. There’s no dictionary in the world that defines that as aggression. If you break into my house, I have a right to defend myself. The same goes for countries. Iran clearly has a right to police its territorial waters, just as the US would have the right to detain an Iranian ship that found its way into San Francisco Bay. If something is self-defense, it can’t also be aggression. The two terms are mutually exclusive.
Frankly, we’re all lucky that cooler heads prevailed in the American and Iranian governments. It would have been all too easy for hardliners in Iran to (accurately) describe this as a breach of their territorial integrity and an act of aggression against them. Similarly, President Obama could have taken a cue from CNN and blamed Iran for the whole affair, omitting any mention of Iranian waters. Fortunately, this did not occur. An incident that could have dramatically raised tensions was basically over before it began. Yesterday morning, the detained Americans were promptly released, unharmed, by Iran, just as was promised.
Continue reading “No, Iran Didn’t Commit an Act of Aggression”
