To say that things are tough in Iraq right now would in many ways be an understatement. Coalition soldiers spend their days risking life and limb working to defend Iraq's fledgling government against terrorist attacks and religious infighting. The scandal at Abu Ghraib besmirches America's honor, and the Islamist thugs' newfound interest in beheading hostages on camera is likely the kind of thing that keeps many up at night.
Plenty is going on, so the last thing we need is the government of a nearby repressive theocracy sending in agents to help out terrorists. Oh, too late.
Last Monday an American and Iraqi joint patrol captured two men armed with explosives suspected of attempting a vehicle bombing. The two identified themselves as Iranian intelligence officers.
Let that information sink in. Not just on the merits, but for the context: while a shady crockumentary making the most absurd of connections between President Bush and Saudi Arabia (an oil-rich Texas family can somehow be connected with the country that produces 25 percent of the world's oil; shock, gasp) rakes in millions at the box office, real intelligence officers armed with real bombs from a really nasty country were caught red-handed trying to sabotage the Middle East's first Arab democracy, and nobody cares.
You could be amused by the whole affair if it weren't for the fact that people are dying.
Where, as the saying goes, is the outrage? Why is Tom Brokaw not sitting gravely next to a graphic featuring the outline of Iran with a big fat question mark? Iranian intelligence officers were caught trying to sabotage American interests, an American ally, and oh yes, American soldiers.
Iran has a vested interest in seeing its old enemy, Iraq, fail to become a modern, U.S.-friendly democracy. Within the past year alone, protests by Iranian youths against their oppressive government (likewise in nearby Syria) have reached a near boiling point, and many have attributed the inspiration behind these demonstrations to be a neighboring state now free of Ba'athist rule. If a Coalition-occupied Iraq can inspire such widespread protest, then an independent and democratic Iraq could be devastating to the mad mullahs who rule Iran.
The leadership of Iran is reacting with its trademark honesty. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi says that Tehran wants only "security and stability" in Iraq. Last I checked, "security and stability" doesn't mean "things blowing up" in Farsi, so it's safe to assume that Khamenei's people are being as straightforward about their operations in Iraq as they are with the U.N. about their nuclear weapons programs. Which is to say, not at all.
Let no one kid himself here: We have a hostile, rogue nation assisting in the terrorizing of an American protectorate and, implicitly, the murder of American soldiers. If this pans out, it is in many ways just the kind of "smoking gun" connection the anti-war crowd demanded of President Bush in his case for war against Saddam Hussein.
But we will not go to war with Iran. Not in the near future, at any rate. We hardly have the capacity for a full-scale assault on another country, let alone any ensuing occupation. This is to speak nothing of the political fallout or how tired our nation is after the extended adventure in Iraq (one wonders then how we ever had the stomach for our years in World War II, but I digress).
Frustratingly, we cannot take Iran to task but only wait for it to change from within. Iran throws rocks at us from a safe distance, knowing that we're stretched too thin to go over there and get them. We can only tell our soldiers to keep transforming Iraq, so that Iran might one day follow suit on its own. In the meantime, kill the terrorists when you can, and remember that the Ayatollah gained his power through popular revolution -- and he can lose it the same.
As for us civilians, hopefully we can keep the hardships in mind next spring as we watch Michael Moore accept his Oscar in a rented tux.
Eric Spratling is a public relations senior. Reach him at Eric.Spratling@asu.edu.
