A big story this week has been Iran capturing a United States spy drone. President Obama demanded that Iran give back the drone in which Iran's government replied "uhhhhh let me think about it....NO!" I don't condone Iran's government with it's theocracy and oppressing it's people by not having freedom of speech or internet along with many other things, but if people are going to get mad because Iran got a U.S. spy plane and think that we should go to war with them then they need to know about international law and history of the U.S.-Iran conflict.
Any government has the right to shoot down or capture any unidentified flying object (UFO) that travels inside it's air space. If any UFO that is not allowed by said government to fly within the designated airspace then it could be interpreted as an act of war or violation of it's sovereignty. Iran has every right to be angry and paranoid that the U.S. could attack it's territory or invade the country itself. The U.S. has invaded the two countries that border Iran's east and west borders (Iraq and Afghanistan). This is not helping the matter of better diplomatic dialogue with Iran, not to mention it's turbulent history with the United States. In 1953 the U.S. overthrew the democratically elected president of Iran and replaced him with a dictator (Shah) to allow the U.S. to gain access to Iran's oil supply. In 1979 when the Shah was overthrown there was the Iran hostage crises in which Iran held U.S. embassy workers hostage for over a year. During the 1980's the U.S. government supplied Iraq with weapons to fight Iran, then playing double agent supplied Iran with weapons to fight Iraq.
During George W. Bush's term as president (2001-2009) he labeled Iran as part of the "Axis of Evil" which also consisted of North Korea. Then of course there was the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It is no wonder why Iran might seek nuclear weapons and help fuel the insurgency in Iraq, which Iran has done. The U.S. government seems easy to label other countries as "enemies" or warrant paranoia when other countries seem to do anything the U.S. doesn't deem as acceptable. Then the usual course of action is to put sanctions on these countries. I'm not sure if these sanctions are working. In the case of Iran it doesn't seem to effect the way Iran continues to pursue nuclear weapons or Iran's continuation of defiance towards the U.S.
Besides this story, another story semi-linked to Iran was the announcement by President Obama that military action in Iraq is over. President Obama warned (without naming) other countries that it will not accept interference in Iraq and said that the U.S. will continue to be a presence in the region. This warning was mostly likely directed towards Iran because as I've said above Iran has played a part in fueling the insurgence in Iraq and continues to have heavily influence in Iraq and the region itself. My skepticism tells me that even though military action is over in Iraq, the war is probably in reality far from over.
The United States for many decades has had a foreign policy of threatening other nations with it's military, in other terms a doctrine of brinksmanship. What happens when the threat of the U.S. military doesn't work? The United States needs to develop a foreign policy that puts away the paranoia card and start to man up. The U.S. needs to stop using spy drones everywhere and start meeting more frequently with these nations that the U.S. shies away from. The U.S. will continue to get nowhere if it continues to treat other nations as enemies and disregard international law by violating other nation's airspace. The U.S. government doesn't have to except how a nation's government treats it's people, but how can we possibly help the situation if we are afraid politically to help take the first step?
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