Politics and pro wrestling

To some people, the themes of international politics are indistinguishable from those of professional wrestling. They see in the relations of nation states a ritualized melodrama of dominance versus submission, triumph versus humiliation. To them, every game’s a zero-sum game; millions of individual human beings are labeled “good” or “evil.” All conflicts that don’t end violently, end shamefully; compromise equates with cowardice.

So it was with the standoff between Great Britain and Iran over 15 Royal Navy sailors taken captive in the Persian Gulf. Ordinary people welcomed their release with happiness and relief. Actually, it’s tempting to say most normal people did. A perilous situation had been resolved without tragedy, and without provoking a potentially disastrous war.

Sure, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used the occasion to score propaganda points. But what points? That Iran is a sovereign nation capable of defending its territory. That its leaders can act magnanimously, freeing the prisoners before Easter as a “gift to the British people.” With a characteristic lack of subtlety, Ahmadinejad all but spelled out the message: We respect your faith; maybe you should respect ours.

In the end, neither side budged from its original story about whether the sailors were captured in Iraqi or Iranian waters. Time was, Glenn Greenwald pointed out in Salon.com, when one could simply have assumed the Brits were telling the truth and the Iranians lying. But that was before Blair assumed his role as what British detractors call “Bush’s poodle.” Anyway, none of that mattered as much as the bloodless ending.

Needless to say, the peaceful resolution threw American neoconservatives into a fury. Disappointment was profound among those clamoring for war with Iran. Fox News pundit William Kristol complained of U.S. passivity. He favored bombing Tehran. So did GOP presidential wannabe Newt Gingrich. He appeared on right-wing talk radio calling for the destruction of Iranian oil refineries and a blockade of the Persian Gulf — potentially doubling the price of oil and throwing the world’s economy into a tailspin.

See, it’s not enough to invade Iran’s neighbors, Afghanistan and Iraq, and to fill the Persian Gulf with U.S. and British warships. Mere reality never suffices. To really make these jokers feel all virile and manly it’s necessary to kill a lot more people, and strut around the ring with the championship belt raised over our heads.

George Orwell analyzed the phenomenon in a 1945 essay called “Notes on Nationalism,” which he defined as “the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.”

Writing immediately after WWII, Orwell emphasized that “nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism.” It was to him a species of moral insanity. A patriot loves his country and its institutions, while “a nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige … his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations.?

Did Ahmadinejad, an annoying jerk, use the British seamen badly? He did. But here’s what Iran didn’t do: No torture, no waterboarding, no being stripped naked, no 24-hour stress positions, no sensory deprivation, no sexual humiliation, no naked pyramids, no dog attacks or dog leashes. The sailors were released in two weeks, basically unharmed.

If Iran won a propaganda victory, it’s important to recognize it wasn’t British capitulation that made it easy; it was American tough guys.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons can be reached at [email protected].