Iran Turmoil –

Yeah. So?

Americans don’t know two central things about Iran:

(1.) What’s really happening and why.

(2.) Why we should care one way or the other.

The first is pretty straightforward. We don’t have an embassy there, and news reporting under the ayatollahs of the last 30 years has been problematical at best. However much we cite Twitter, or whichever “Iranian patriot” is on the internet, all we know is there’s large-scale political unrest.

Besides, our track record of political involvement in Iran isn’t stellar. We backed the Shah of Iran, and on New Year’s Eve in 1978, President Jimmy Carter said “Under the Shah’s brilliant leadership Iran is an island of stability in one of the most troublesome regions of the world. There is no other state figure whom I could appreciate and like more.”

There was one the Iranians could appreciate and like more, Ayatollah Khomeini. His Islamic fundamentalists deposed the ailing Shah and forced him into exile here. On November 4, 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was seized and 52 diplomats were taken hostage to endure 444 days of captivity horrible to them and humiliating to the United States.

A nasty stew of seized assets, charge and countercharge simmers yet.

Recently there was an Iranian election that may or may not have been more crooked than locally customary. Several Iranian factions seem to be seriously attempting to overthrow the current clutch of clerics and their boy Ahmadinejad, the current president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Because Americans tend to see revolutions as the freedom-loving people rising up to overthrow tyranny, they often miss it when people rise up to overthrow one tyranny in favor of another.

All of which is marginally more fascinating than a rain-soaked U.S. Open golf tourney, which leads us to the second question. Why should we care what’s going on in Iran?

Iran’s open and obvious pursuit of nuclear capability – weapons included – is an often-cited concern. We worry that if they develop nukes, they might use them, or give them to those who would. An Arab/Muslim reply to that might be “So why didn’t you worry the same way when Israel developed nukes – and if they can have them, why can’t we? And what about Pakistan? And North Korea?”

We don’t have a good reply.

Trade under sanctions certainly can’t be an issue. The feds say our 2008 imports from Iran amounted to almost $105 million, about three-quarters of that in rugs and artwork. Iranian oil doesn’t figure in the U.S. economy.

Iran forms the north coast of the Straits of Hormuz, the 40-mile-wide bottleneck through which a third of the world’s oil must pass, and there is concern that Iran might attempt to close it. The United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet would certainly enter that discussion, as would the other oil regimes who may be for the advance of Islam, but not at the expense of oil income.

Since Iran has no apparent intention of helping U.S. interests, and no real long-term possibility of seriously hurting them, someone must make a case for why the United States should care or attempt to influence what happens in Iran.

And if the case can’t be made – and it can’t – we should mind our own business. It would be a nice change of pace. Let’s hope we try it.

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