The Big Blue Sky: Thirty-one

The survivors of the failed rescue mission, fearing annihilation if they continued fighting, had surrendered to the advancing Iranian army. Over the next twenty-four hours they would suffer the obligatory abuse of disgraced combatants; isolation, delayed medical care, little food or water, humiliation, summary beatings, sleep deprivation and mock executions. Their training into abuse and deprivation would help them to an extent. In that training there was always the promise that the nightmare would end, and that the abusers were comrades who would not cross certain lines. There would be no ultimate line here, but the line of death. Nothing could prepare a man for the prospect that the freedoms he had long enjoyed and defended were gone, and that he might never see home or family again.

The prisoners were separated almost immediately. The wounded were moved to the Baghiyyatollah al-Azam military hospital in Tehran. The others were scattered around the country to prevent any attempt at rescue by the Americans. Eventually all the captives would be moved to various locations around the Iranian capitol. There they would be kept in different locations throughout the city, and brought together where they could be paraded and humiliated before the World’s Press. There was no hint of the terrible time bomb each of them carried. There was no indication that they were as much pawns as guinea pigs for a new kind of war. For now they would be trophies for the Iranians, as proof of America’s disregard for the sovereignty of dissident nations.

There would be little point to the exercise, except some sad assertion by the Iranians of emasculated power. Grainy washed-out images of prisoners in white jumpsuits eating at a prison table in a window-less room, or seated together along a wall beneath artificial light all but erasing their captors abuse, would be shown around the world. The images would do nothing to change hearts in the West. Those in the Muslim world that harbored a bias against the West would cheer Iran’s David and Goliath defiance. Others in the Muslim world, who saw Iran as an ideological enemy almost as loathsome as America, would be searching for angles.

In Washington, the American President charted a course across the impossibly complex Chess match of International diplomacy and one-upmanship. In that game history could be changed as easily by generals and heads of state, as by sudden acts by obscure souls. The Germans and Austrians had learned that lesson only too well in 1914 when a boy of sixteen stepped from a crowd on a Sarajevo street to gun down Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. Within months Europe was embroiled in a war that would cost the lives of more than ten million. The president was struggling to learn the lessons of history and to keep a proper perspective. In the days and weeks to come it would take every ounce of discipline he could muster not to take every slight, every diplomatic rebuff, and every act that upped the ante towards war personally.

By contrast, long smoldering anti-Western sentiments in Tehran roared to a conflagration. Decades of contrived paranoia, combined with potent Middle Eastern emotionalism erupted onto the streets the following day. A fear of Western aggression against Iran and Muslims, stoked and inflated by insular clerics, was personified by the bruised and pale faces of the captured Americans. It robbed the opposition of support and resolve, as many rallied to defend the nation. Men flocked to volunteer for militias and civil defense centers by the tens of thousands. The American President was burned in effigy amid hyper-agitated crowds. The Canadian Embassy was sacked, while diplomats and their families were spirited from the country by the Iranian high command.

There were calls for war in Congress and in the Iranian parliament. Another naval task force was ordered into the region, joining the two there already. For the moment cooler heads were prevailing, but peace is a child’s toy and nationalism a child on the verge of a tantrum. The leaders, seeking to thread their way towards peace, were burdened in knowing that prudent preparations for war steadily tipped the scales towards make war an eventuality. Among the American people fears of sleeper cells and impotent frustration rose to join cynical calls for war and retribution. There seemed to be little regard for the ultimate costs and predictable outcome of a war in either country.

Short of all out war, all the Iranians could hope for would be a bargaining position gained from their hostages. It would be a treacherous and dangerous road, risking war and greater isolation for the nominal admiration of peasants and stagnate Islamic states. The United Nations would condemn the taking of hostages, and echo the President’s demand for their unconditional release. No sanctions would be eased. There would be no quid pro quo over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The CIA would quietly agree to stop encouraging Iranian officials to defect-for a time. A couple of spies would be unceremoniously released away from the glare and hype of the Press, and a contract to upgrade Iran’s power grid by a Serbian firm would be allowed after the crisis had abated. In the end, to most of the world, Iran’s reputation as a peasant nation fraudulently asserting itself among responsible developed nations would be confirmed, that is if it did not come to war. With each passing moment the likelihood of war increased dramatically, with some who actively worked to guarantee it would come about.