Read this at the Doctor's Office this morning:
A Template for Taming Iran
By RICHARD BROOKHISER
Feb 19 , 2007
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The U.S. has been embroiled with Iran since 1979, first with the hostage crisis, then with Iran-contra, now with the "axis of evil." And if the past is any indication, that entanglement--sour, multiform and intractable--is likely to last decades: it took four Presidents, two wars and several treaties to get us out of the bad relationship the last time we tried.
With independence, America threw off the carapace of regulations and treaties that applied to British colonies. This meant we would have to deal on our own with the Barbary States. The Barbary States--Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli--were four North African countries whose revenues came from a naval protection racket they had been running in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean since the late 16th century. They seized foreign ships and enslaved the crews. If you paid them tribute in advance, they would leave you alone. Otherwise, you would have to ransom captives on an ad hoc basis. Their most famous prisoner was Miguel de Cervantes, who fictionalized his ordeal in Don Quixote. Roman Catholic religious orders (Trinitarians, Order of Mercy) devoted themselves to the business of ransoming Christian captives.
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams first encountered the Barbary States in the late 1780s, when they were American diplomats in Europe. They did not enjoy the experience. In 1786 they reported on a conversation with Tripoli's ambassador to Britain. He informed them that peace could be bought for 30,000 guineas (with a £3,000 tip for himself) and advised that Tunis would settle at the same rate, although he could not answer for Morocco or Algiers.
Excellent history lesson for all of us.
These presidents fought an undeclared war against the Barbarian shortly after our country was founded. If they had not chose to fight that WOT, would we be a nation today?