It's a little weird to watch conservative columnists present the Iran's recent behavior as sheer, reckless thuggery, rather than a series of calculated responses to Western actions. The four Western activists detained, for instance, were detained not long after revelations that the US government is pursuing a $75 million democracy promotion plan explicitly aimed at destabilizing the Iranian regime. If, scaling up for population, an avowedly hostile nation revealed they were funneling $450 million to groups hostile to the American government for the sole purpose of changing our system, is it unlikely that we would, in some way, respond?
And if, shortly thereafter, it was reported that, simultaneously, this hostile nation's intelligence agency was running a covert operation that "include[d] a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions," is it again so crazed to imagine we might detain some employees of that nation's democracy-promoting non-profits? You may not like the move, but it's not particularly shocking.
And if that power had arrested our diplomats in Iraq, would you not expect that we'd make retaliatory moves? In this case, as Joe Klein points out, Iran actually retaliated cautiously, by detaining the British soldiers, knowing that the Brits would negotiate rather than move straight to missiles -- and that's why one of their diplomats was actually released in the deal.
Look, you can believe that every action undertaken by the US is pristinely moral, and every action of the Iranian government an absolute atrocity. But you shouldn't pretend that Iran's actions are completely mysterious, unpredictable, or unprovoked. And the Bush administration clearly doesn't believe so either. That's why they've engaged Iran in high-level talks on Iraq this week -- not the sort of cooperation you pursue with a nutty, untrustworthy nation.
