In the course of outlining decades of Iranian duplicity vis-a-vis the West, Michael Rubin (who we last noted here) includes this comical example in his Wall Street Journal (subs. req'd; alt. free link) article today:
While the Iran-Contra Affair is remembered today for the Reagan administration's attempts to circumvent Congressional prohibition of funding of the Nicaraguan resistance, it also illustrates the inadvisability of trusting Tehran. President Reagan sought to win the release of American hostages in Lebanon but, as soon as Washington compensated Tehran for its bad behavior, its militias accelerated hostage seizure. Diplomatic enticement -- bribery by another name -- backfired. But diplomacy is not just about incentives; it is also about trust. What could have been just a failed initiative turned to scandal when, on the seventh anniversary of the embassy seizure, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, today the chairman of the Expediency Council, broke a pledge of secrecy and revealed the meetings to the international press.
It's so unfair -- the White House was illegally shipping weapons to Iran in return for hostages, and the Iranians went and told the world about it! Anyway, it's a small world because that same Rafsanjani was the favourite to win the Iranian Presidential election last year, until a White House call for a boycott backfired and put Ahmadinejad in the job instead. While this might be interpreted as some far-seeing revenge for 1986, it's more likely the case that the neocon obsession with Iran has given them a knack for always winding up dealing with the wrong guy.
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