Hold Saudi Arabia to same standard as Iran

For some politicians, Iran is becoming more of a comic book villain than a realistic foreign policy issue.

The country plays a prominent role as archenemy to Saudi Arabia in one of the most troubled regions in the world today, the Middle East. But on the select occasions the Islamic Republic doesn’t happen to fit into a narrative of Iranian villainy, hawks in Congress and on the campaign trail are more than happy to oblige with over-the-top rhetoric. A brief hostage scenario last Tuesday with American sailors held captive for about 16 hours was no exception.

The inordinate belligerence directed toward Iran as a result of the incident hasn’t been for lack of a visible actor in the Middle East, either. On Jan. 2, Saudi Arabia’s theocratic regime carried out the execution of 47 “terrorists,” who in reality were mostly Saudi Shia clerics and activists.

The United States can’t afford a bombastic or melodramatic approach to the complicated inter-regional issues of the Middle East. But that’s exactly what some politicians who favor a more aggressive Middle East policy have been offering in the face of recent developments in the area. The disparity in the reactions to Saudi Arabia’s mass execution of Shia clerics and Iran’s capture and return of 10 American sailors should teach us something — fact, not blind emotion, should guide our approach to Iran and the Middle East.

On Jan. 12, foreign policy extremists obligingly illustrated this lesson. Hours before President Barack Obama was to give the annual State of the Union address, the White House received word of a hostage situation in the Persian Gulf involving Iran’s capture of 10 American sailors.

The sailors taken hostage aboard two small Navy ships had drifted into Iranian territorial waters, which prompted interception by the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told Univision last Thursday that the trespass was the result of a “navigational error” on the American side. The sailors were released and returned within 16 hours of their capture, and there is little evidence that they were mistreated. As a “hostile act,” the run-in comes up somewhat short.

But while the situation was still developing, hawks like Donald Trump, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas and others let forth an outburst of anger that would make the aftermath of a football game in Morgantown, West Virginia, look tame.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush used the altercation — which was resolved within 24 hours with the safe return of the 10 American hostages — to criticize what he called on Twitter, “Obama’s humiliatingly weak Iran policy.” Another Republican hopeful for the White House, Trump — who isn’t known for tactful or thought-out statements — loudly complained about Iran and the President’s approach to the situation last Wednesday on Twitter.

“We want our hostages back NOW!,” the reality TV star demanded as he proposed a freeze on lifting Iran’s economic sanctions.

Cotton, who is on the Committee on Armed Services, took issue with the President’s reluctance to “call this brazen seizure a hostile act.” Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, went so far as to suggest the event was “serious enough that we shouldn’t proceed with the festivities of [the State of the Union] tonight until we have answers.”

In a different situation, the reaction many Republicans in Congress offered would have been an admirable show of patriotism, if slightly premature. But in the circumstances of this so-called crisis, it was laughably absurd.

This attitude didn’t seem to show itself anywhere in U.S. politics in the face of Saudi Arabia’s mass execution. Whether or not the United States’ ally’s actions were directly intended to provoke Iran — the Islamic Republic has one of the few significant Shia-majority populations in the area and is locked in a regional struggle for dominance against the Saudi monarchy — they received much less attention than their impact might have merited.

Widespread discontent and protests greeted Saudi Arabia’s decision to execute the Shia clerics and unilaterally sever diplomatic ties with Tehran, Iran. But in the United States, not a single candidate for president in either party mentioned the destabilizing egotism of Saudi foreign policy as a driving force behind the spread of ultraconservative political-religious movements in the region.

Discussing the executions, GOP presidential hopeful and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told Politico on Jan. 4, he “has no sympathy for Iran.” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, reiterated at a campaign event the same day that, above all, Saudi Arabia is “not an enemy of the United States.”

Of course, Rubio is right. The Saudi monarchy’s actions, though rash, don’t necessarily make its nation a foe to the United States. But it’s problematic that this more deliberate, wait-and-see approach didn’t prevail during the American sailors’ controversy, particularly as the former actively contributed to continued destabilization in the region. At the very least, the comparison should raise questions about how much emotion influences Americans’ reactions to events in foreign policy.

There’s certainly been no lack of emotion in the reaction to Iran’s brief custody of 10 American sailors. But was the energy of this melodramatic response well placed?

The underwhelming response to Saudi provocations demonstrates a fundamentally misguided approach to Saudi-Iranian tensions in the Middle East. The fact that Saudi Arabia is a U.S. ally should not mean that the Saudis’ reckless foreign policy should go uncondemned and even unnoticed.

But until we can start looking at Iran and Saudi Arabia with the smallest degree of impartiality, we’ll keep on missing real foreign policy crises and end up seeing nothing but tempests in a teapot.

Henry primarily writes on government and domestic policy for the Pitt News.

Write Henry at hgg7@pitt.edu.