The sentence of eight years in prison just passed on Roxana Saberi in an Iranian court is a travesty. She is the 31-year-old with dual Iranian and American citizenship, accused of somehow obtaining classified information and passing it to American intelligence. What position was she in to obtain such information? And how could any facts be established when her trial lasted just one day?
President Obama so far has restricted himself to denying that she engaged in espionage. Mrs. Clinton avers herself “deeply disappointed.” Such politeness, such self-control — and how misplaced! Words, mere words. They appear to have no insight at all into the political culture confronting them. For months, they have been preparing the ground for some sort of negotiation in order to establish a friendly relationship with Iran, and at pains to stress how anxious they are for this. To the mullahs, that means the Americans want something, and the question therefore is how much can they be made to pay for it. This phony arrest has been staged for the sake of the information it will reveal about the thinking in Washington, or in plain language, how complete is the collapse of American morale and will.
Obama and Clinton should demand Roxana’s release, summon all the international help available, impose whatever sanctions will harm Iran, and maybe dispatch a fleet if only as a show of strength. Maybe even arrest a few more of the Iranians in Iraq posing as diplomats but who really are engaged in espionage. Never mind what the surrender-monkey Europeans do or say. Otherwise the mullahs will conclude that they can mess with the United States as much as they like, and there are no costs in doing so. They’ll push Hezbollah and Hamas to fight — they have just been caught promoting a Hezbollah coup designed to destabilise Egypt. After that, they’ll suddenly boast that they’ve been lying all along, and do have the nuclear weapon. What’s happening to Roxana shows that soon Americans and everybody else might not be safe in that part of the world.