The Guns of April

By Scott Horton

On March 23, Iran's Revolutionary Guard ambushed a group of 15 British sailors and marines who had been inspecting an Indian merchant ship in the Shatt al-Arab waterway. The seizure provoked headlines and a sense of crisis in the U.K., but has gathered rather less attention in the U.S. media.

On Friday the oil markets went into a flutter as a result of rumors predicting a massive U.S.-led air strike against Iranian nuclear positions. The rumors had their source in Moscow, where reporters were quoting Russian intelligence figures predicting a build up in tensions during Holy Week, followed by a strike on Good Friday (the Jerusalem Post reports some of the details in its Sunday edition). Even assuming the report is accurate, Russian intelligence is certainly not the most reliable source of information about American military intentions.

In one sense, however, Friday's jitters do have a solid basis in fact: the United States and Iran have adopted such a confrontational stance with respect to one another that the prospect of the current flap developing into a full-scale confrontation cannot be dismissed. The situation has something of the feel of The Guns of August to it. Barbara Tuchman's classic work of popular history described in compelling detail the chain of events that led to the Great War, the destruction of a whole generation of young Europeans and the transformation of what once seemed a stable, proud, and conservative order on the European continent into something uncertain and unstable. In July 1965, Tuchman published an essay entitled “History by the Ounce” in Harper's in which she laid to rest several false interpretations of her work and stressed her objective:

What I meant to convey was that the generals were in the trap of the circumstances, training, ideas, and national impulses of their time and their individual countries; that there but for the grace of God go we. I was not trying to convey stupidity but tragedy, fatality.

In a sense she portrayed what modern international relations theorists describe as “lock-in,” a situation in which decision-makers are committed to an aggressively articulated posture, any retreat from which might be viewed as weakness on the world stage.

There are of course many differences between the tragic sequence of events that ended the summer of 1914 and the game now being played out in the Persian Gulf. This would not be a struggle between equals or near equals who have played balance-of-power games for centuries, but between the global super power and its great power ally on one hand and a rising regional power with vastly more modest military capabilities on the other. In 1914, near the apogee of global imperialism, national prestige and pride, often embodied in an autocratic leader, played an enormous role. In 2007, each of the three leaders—Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, George Bush and Tony Blair—is extremely unpopular at home. Both Ahmadinejad and Bush, each of whom just suffered a significant election setback, have advisors who place strong value on a war as a means of addressing domestic problems and rallying the population behind them. Both have a tendency to present conflicts in manichaeistic terms, as a struggle between “good and evil.” Followers of both embrace an apocalyptic world vision. By contrast, Tony Blair is focused on avoiding any further embarrassments as he winds up his stewardship and prepares to depart No. 10 Downing Street, likely followed by his chancellor of the exchequer.

Many expected that the Bush Administration would react to these developments by sensationalizing them. But instead, its response has been something on the lines of Teddy Roosevelt's “speak softly and carry a big stick”; the administration deployed a third carrier group into the region for the most extensive naval exercises the gulf has ever seen. Downing Street appears eager to manage the crisis itself and has not sought American involvement. Neither, it appears, is Blair interested in involving the United Nations in the process.

Realists could easily find a formula for averting conflict over this episode. But realists are in short supply today. Newsweek's Mike Hirsh assesses the situation glumly, but in my view, correctly:

If Tony Blair refuses to negotiate over this incident, and the Americans don’t step in, then the tenuous signs of diplomatic life that were beginning to appear before last week’s hostage incident will likely wither and die. Earlier in March, Tehran made a big concession by appearing at an Iraq regional conference without asking for up-front concessions—such as the release of Iranian operatives that it claims are mere diplomats. But if the newest Gulf crisis drags on much longer, the expected follow-up conference on Iraq probably won’t go forward. Brinkmanship can sometimes set the table. But people have to be willing to sit down. With the West and the mullahs glaring at each other across a widening gulf of mutual mistrust, that seems unlikely to happen now.

Tuchman wrote to convey fatality, not stupidity. If this develops along the dark trajectory that Hirsh anticipates, it will surely be a mixture of both.