And Iran: Iran so far away….

A few months ago, I read James Clavell’s Whirlwind. The book begins 28 years ago today: February 9, 1979, in the middle of the Iranian Revolution.

Now those of you who have read any of Clavell’s books know that they are long historical novels, and full of detail, and have dozens of characters, at least 3 of whom can be argued are the “main” character. Whirlwind is no different. Who is more important: the Mullah who opens and ends the book with prayers; the helicopter pilots who risk their lives; the former World War II POW who must play a careful game of cat and mouse to get his people out of the country safely; the executive’s son who witnesses a brutal mass execution; the Persian Princess; the spoiled daugher of the bazaari; the head of Straun’s aircraft division? Thankfully for the reader, Clavell walks us through a strict timeline; each day is marked; each chaper includes a map to let us know where in the country the characters are; each section has a timestamp.

Now, I was alive in 1979. Admittedly I did not pay a whole lot of attention to the world events of the day, preferring to listen to the Bay City Rollers. But I do remember when the Embassy was taken, and I remember NBC and ABC (probably CBS too) running a big “100 days in captivity” special. In many days, reading this historical novel was an eye-opener.

One of the most striking things is that at least once a day, some character said that “soon things would get back to normal.” Oh the Shah is gone, things will be back to normal in a few days. Oh Khomeni has arrived, surely things will be back to normal soon. Oh the military has stood down, that means things will be ok soon. A cow farted, things will be back to normal. Talking to people who were adults in this era confirms that this kind of thinking was prevalent in real life in the United States, too. This is but one example of the striking naivety that seemed to afflict all Westerners in the book. Non-natives were consistently caught off-guard by the idea that “progressive” reforms could be rolled back, that a theocracy could be erected, that Sharia could be enforced, that assets owned jointly with foriegn entities could be nationalized.

The reason I bring this up today is that we still don’t understand Iran.

More to the point, we don’t understand that they don’t like us. Sure, they have their reasons. A poll this week says Arabs don’t like President Bush. My inner cynic suggests he doesn’t much like them either. It might have something to do with the sabre rattling that keeps going around, set on a backdrop of perfectly innocent ICBM tests.

There is just too darn much we don’t know about what’s really going on there, and since we’ve had effectively no diplomatic presence there in the last 28 years, we are unlikely to make progress on that front. Even Hillary Clinton has gone on record saying there’s too much we don’t know to be idly talking about bombs and invasions and whatnot (WARNING: that link is an MP3 of yesterday’s interview on the Ed Schultz Show). We don’t even know who is really calling the shots, according to Senator Clinton — who is in a much better position to know these things than most people. Do we negotiate with Ayatolla Khamenei? Or President Ahmadinejad? The restless Parliament?

These are not academic questions if we want to avoid having another nuclear power in the region, or sending American soldiers to a third Islamic nation. Pat Buchannan and some liberal thinkers agree, Bush may not in the long run have the authority to start the next war, but frankly I am beginning to wonder if much of anything can stop the President from having something he really wants.

Oh well, the Senate is talking about non-binding resolutions. Surely this means everything will get back to normal soon.

Clearly, too many people are looking forward to Armageddon.

In closing: on children being left behind; someone finally caught on to the fact that people grow pot in the ‘burbs, too (way to have cutting edge reporting, USA Today); law, the rational basis test, and you; it’s a lot easier to say “quality, affordable healthcare for all by 2012” when you don’t have an actual proposal on the table; thoughts on the idea of a flat tax; turning ISPs (Internet Service Providers) into cops will not prevent child abuse, but it would probably drive small ISPs out of business; has anybody considered the idea that the internet might make things tougher for child abusers?; the person in charge of infrastructure at California’s DMV officially doesn’t get it, thinking that somehow RealID is going to allow her to provide more services online (How? How does this prevent Joe Nefarious from entering Joe Average’s driver’s license number at the online prompt? Maybe she wants to issue everyone a USB License Reader to hook to their computer?); and finally, This Day In History 1969, the first 747 takes off. They still make 747s a couple miles from here. It’s a beautiful airplane. Sometimes on hot days they open the factory doors and you can see what they are working on. But let me tell you, the 777 is much quieter.

Follow up: one, two, three, four.