DinoBlog

Dear Kingremi,

When you mention the Melian dialogue and its relevancy to Iran, I am reminded of another episode from ancient history.

After the death of Alexander the Great, Macedonia was largely unable to maintain an important part in the politics of the Hellenistic world. Meanwhile, the Seleucids in Palestinia and the Ptolemies in Egypt dominated the Greek East. In the latter half of the third and into the second century BC, Philip V of Macedonia attempted to expand his holdings in the Aegean Sea. By both armed conflict and diplomatic overtures he tried to bring Macedonia back to the primacy it once held. He made an alliance with the Carthaginians to stave off the threat of Rome. He made a pact with Antiochos III of the Seleucid Empire to seize Egyptian holdings in the Aegean Sea.

But Philip overplayed his hand. The Carthaginians could not defeat the Romans, who now had an excuse to march into Macedonia. Antiochos III did not dare come to Macedonia’s aid (at least not openly) because he recognized that it was Rome, not Macedonia, against whom he was struggling in a cold war for control over the Aegean. Macedonia was just a second class state who should have picked a superpower to support instead of trying to grab power for itself. Philip failed because he tried to exert influence when he did not have the political or military clout to do it. As a result, Rome invaded Macedonia and Greece - on behalf of the “independence” of the Greek cities, a novel reason to invade a foreign state indeed - and forced Philip to disarm and become its ally. Philip’s son Perseus was the last king of Macedonia, dependent on Rome to sustain his figurehead status.

The historian Ernst Badian once said that history needs to be rewritten for every generation. He studied the diplomatic and military maneuvering of the Roman Republic against Hellenistic empires in order to understand the Cold War politics of seizing influence over the second and third worlds. Should these histories be rewritten for us today, and who will rewrite them? Is Iran a Macedonia that should just lay down its arms in the face of powers with which its resources simply can not cope? Are we Rome?

Forcing the hand of any state by means of threat is not typically a good idea. And more war is usually the last thing anybody could do with, not least of all us. If history is going to be rewritten at this time, it needs to be done by clear planning and innovative diplomacy.

I think that Iran is fighting - and by fighting I mean clandestinely shipping arms across its borders so other people can die for their agenda - for the same thing for which we are fighting: an ideologically and politically friendly state in the Middle East. Besides this, they are also supporting militant groups against Israel and attempting to make Lebanon its own satellite state. And it is apparent that they have the resources to at least be disruptive, if not actually accomplish anything. But I surmise, or perhaps I hope, that Iran’s cold war/hot war pseudo-imperialist actions will exhaust itself before it can bring about any more destruction and death.

Go-go gadget history,

Aristeides