My greatest fear is that one day I’ll wake up and learn that we are at war with Iran. As an American of Iranian descent who has family and friends in Iran, I pray that this will never happen.
This doomsday scenario has been put on the back burner. But in the wake of the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the possibility of a full-blown confrontation between the United States and Iran has never been more real in 29 years of conflict.
Recently, it was reported by The New York Times that “five armed Iranian speedboats approached three United States Navy warships in international waters in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, then maneuvered aggressively as radio threats were issued that the American ships would be blown up.”
Remarkably, the commander of the U.S. Navy destroyer chose not to fire at one of the Iranian boats.
This 30-minute mini-confrontation between the U.S. destroyer and the Iranian patrol boats (later deemed by the Pentagon as belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp) clearly attests to the power of one mistake.
Whether it be a commander of a Navy destroyer or a Navy ensign in the Persian Gulf, one person’s judgment can ignite what has been described by President Bush in a recent Israeli TV interview as “World War III.”
But how could a potentially minor confrontation off the coast of Iran trigger such a response? It’s no secret that we have a limited number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and that the majority of Americans are looking for a quick and painless exit strategy. It’s also no secret that the recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report on Iran has somewhat deterred the administration from pursuing another war.
Then what has to be the real trigger?
More than 40 years ago, on Aug. 5, 1964, the Times reported that “President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action against gunboats and certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.”
Sound familiar? It was only a year later when President Johnson himself admitted that the North Vietnamese torpedo attack may never have happened, claiming that the U.S. Navy was shooting at whales. In fact, historians and policy analysts are now fairly certain that this shadow attack never happened.
The result? Fifty-eight thousand American lives and over 350,000 casualties. And it was all made possible by a minor confrontation in disguise.
Abdolrahimi is a fourth-year political science, business economics and Arabic student.