ARE AMERICANS HELD IN IRAN FOOLS OR SPIES?

Iran says three Americans who crossed the Iraq border into western Iran in July 2009 were spies. But what if the three were merely fools who thought it was fine to go sightseeing in one of the world’s most volatile regions?
According to the families of the three, they were tourists, who simply got lost while trekking in search of breathtaking scenery in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq where it intersects with an unmarked Iranian border. That view has been supported by Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, who asked for their release after they were charged with espionage. Lately, the matter took on a much more serious character when the Iranian Intelligence Minister, Heidar Moslehi, announced he was prepared to make public evidence the three worked for U.S. intelligence. The response from the U.S. to Iran’s claim has been one of anger, followed by disbelief and assertions that the Iranians are paranoid and intent on making political capital out of the arrests. According to many American news reports, the Iranians illegally detained three young Americans who loved the outdoors and mistakenly strayed into Iranian territory. In light of that criticism of Iran, one might want to ask how Homeland Security would have reacted had three Iranians, aged between 27 and 30, been apprehended in the Arizona desert, having crossed over from Mexico. The initial suspicion would undoubtedly have been that they were drug traffickers, terrorists or spies from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. It would not have been long before the mainstream media would have been warning of a new Iranian threat. It would also have been unlikely any mainstream media outlet would have suggested the Iranians were on a sightseeing trip and got lost. But, if one is to entertain the argument that the three Americans were naïve hikers one has to look more closely at their backgrounds and the circumstances surrounding their apprehension.
It appears the group was comprised of four, not three Americans. The three arrested were Shane Bauer, 27, his girlfriend, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27. The fourth member of the party, who was sick in bed in Iraq at the time of the arrest of the others, was Shon Meckfessel, also in his late 20s. All were graduates of UC Berkeley, California. Meckfessel is author of an off-beat book about the Balkans and has visited the Middle East in the past. Bauer, who speaks Arabic, has written articles about the region for a slew of major media outlets. In July 2009, he was a correspondent for New American Media. The editor of that publication, Sandy Close, told the LA Times he emailed her days before his arrest and told her he was in Kurdistan to “get a feel” for the region and cover Iraqi elections. In her view, he was not given to reckless adventurism and would not have deliberately put his friends in jeopardy.
Given the four were by all accounts politically savvy, one would be inclined to think they must have been aware of the dangers facing Americans travelling in that part of the world. There have been suggestions that, since they were in the Kurdish part of Iraq, which has close relations with Washington, they knew they faced less danger. Even if there is a grain of truth in such an assertion, the reality is that any four Americans traveling in Iraq would have been at risk and even more so if they were journalists lacking the support of a major news network. Such an analysis provides the genesis of an argument that some, if not all of them, were naïve adventurists. Yet, that hardly supports the story circulated by their families that their sole purpose was sightseeing. If one credits them with foolishness one has to conclude they were on a naïve journalistic quest, hoping at the same time to explore their surroundings. That is essentially what the State Department wants Iran to conclude but it is not an easy case to make in light of the fact the four were well educated and some of them were keen students of the politics of the region, though not necessarily its precise geography. In other words, they were not good at map reading.
The perceived State Department wisdom that they were fools who lost their bearings is not without merit. That sort of thing happens regularly, especially when people go trekking, or climbing, in some of the globe’s most mountainous regions. In this instance, the region was mountainous and, as the story goes, they were based in Suleymaniyeh, a Kurdish city near Iran’s border. On the day of their arrest, Bauer, Shourd and Fattal, went hiking along narrow trails while Meckfessel remained in bed nursing an upset stomach. He later told friends his companions went off to visit a famed waterfall on the advice of locals. He next heard from them in a phone call in which they said they were surrounded by Iranian guards. He reckoned they had been given the wrong directions to the waterfall and had accidentally strayed into Iranian territory. If that is true, Bauer was the most reckless of his companions since his website credited him with extensive knowledge of the Middle East. Here is what he had to say about himself:
“Shane Bauer is a freelance journalist and photographer based in the Middle East. A fluent speaker of Arabic, his work has largely focused on the Middle East and North Africa, where he has spent the past six years.”
Bauer went on to claim his works were published in the U.S., U.K., Middle East and Canada in outlets including the LA Times, New American Media, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, The Nation and Le Monde. His girlfriend, Sarah Shourd, was listed on another website as a “teacher-activist based in the Middle East.”
If an Iranian journalist with Bauer’s experience was caught wandering in Arizona, or in Israel near the border with Lebanon, a claim he was sightseeing would be regarded with skepticism. Nevertheless, it is entirely conceivable he and his friends were foolish in the extreme. On the other hand, if all or any of them was a spy, it does not auger well for the CIA or any other U.S. intelligence outfit because of the sheer amateurish quality of the affair.
Assuming they were fools and not spies, their sightseeing exploits have created problems for Washington, which does not have a diplomatic presence in Iran. If one takes seriously some of the rhetoric emanating from Teheran, the Iranian leadership will use the Americans as pawns in a bartering game. Iran has released a list of 11 of its citizens it claims are being held by the U.S. One is a nuclear scientist, who vanished while visiting Mecca. According to Iran, three more of its citizens linked to its nuclear industry were abducted in Europe and flown secretly to the U.S. It is in that context Iran may seek to exchange its captives for Iranians it claims are being held by the U.S.