(We thought we would start with the Footnotes section of the Socotra Daily and get that out of the way. You are aware of how complicated this gets and how quickly when we deal with other people’s religious faiths and try to stay away from the details we do not understand. When world history came up in our schooling we were made aware of the internal and external manifestations of Faith on Ordinary life. The impact can be profound, as you are well aware).

The internal schisms of the Great Faiths can lead to violence. It was present in Christian denominations, and we learned about some of the episodes in the religious tradition we actually claim to understand. In middle school they tried to cover the endless series of conflicts between Catholic and Protestants. We try to stay away from it. The situation in Iran, home of classic Persia, has a similar sort of theological basis more than a thousand years in duration. We are not going to sink into an attempt at explanation of the Sunni-Shia schism any more than we will insist on “explaining” the provisions of our turbulent times.

We will try to be brief on this one. The Prophet Muhammad had no male heirs, and what we are observing in Iran is partly about regime succession deemed suitable to the two largest factions in that faith. A quick number? There are 1.4 Billion Islamic followers and about a tenth of them identify as Shiia. So, the numbers propel a certain weight in this. There are more Sunnis than Shia by a wide margin. We do not argue for (or against) any religious minutiae of any sect not our own.

It is a bit startling to be writing a normally innocuous daily column that has assumed an aspect of danger. There was talk about arresting one of the recent Four Stars over his remarks on a former POTUS. We had already been threatened on violations of the UCMJ Article 88 provision specifying court martial for those officers who disparage decision-makers,

We are exposed to it in Your Nation’s Capital by just coming and going across the mighty river that divides Arlington from the District. Mayor Bowser is on top of it. She is aware of her part of the Crime Problem and has flown to Dubai to try to drum up jobs to improve the situation here by improving it there. Like our government’s view of Walls and Immigration, you know?

We got dragged into the post-Persian anger fest some 44 years ago. We had been scheduled to ride USS Midway down to Perth, West Australia, from our homeport in Yokosuka, Japan. We were scheduled to make a series of goodwill visits along the way in the Philippines and Thailand. We talked about the visit to Nyali Beach, Kenya, in yesterday’s column. We did not understand what was going on, and every event that appeared in The Ship’s Schedule was on the way to being changed. What made this one so strange was the news about the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran by student activists in Iran. That was 44 years ago this month, so conflict with the Iranians has been something that has occupied at least part of our attention all of our working lives.

There is a dozen of our Salts who participated in that crisis and we sometimes still talk about it and laugh about the amount of stuff we didn’t understand. And still don’t. We recall the fancy hardware flying aboard our ship when the rescue attempt was being planned and were there to do some of it. The motion of big steel ships was part of it along with the problems of the rescue mission.

There was something unsettling about our small part of that elongated affair. The understanding of international fashion on modern Persian culture came only recently. We blush to say our claim to “understanding” is undoubtedly eternally flawed. It ultimately lasted four hundred and forty-four days, or ultimately about half the length of our tours on Midway. It also was enough time for the memories of Iranian flight cadets strolling around the training grounds at Naval Air Station Pensacola were still fresh, like the mini-skirted co-eds displaying their fashion sense . They were always well turned out from a uniform perspective, and hope however things turned out for that cadre of students. They must have come from families known to support the Shah, and when he vanished and the Ayatollahs returned it was naturally a little disconcerting.

The current crisis in Gaza is part of it, though naturally it is a part of a churning in something longer and more profound. That would be a schism in one of the three religious faiths linked to the Patriarchy and to The Book, or the five or six Books that hold special revealed insight into the Word of God. Over the decades there have been plenty of moments to think about the actual mechanics of what is going on. It was not until this long year that things began to be illuminated.

It was a little outrage that ultimately lasted 444 days and paralyzed Jimmy Carter’s administration. We looked on in amazement yesterday as Rosylynn Carter was laid to rest. She might have been the sanest member of that Administration. We will say it again: the blame for the embassy seizure rests upon the Iranian students who answered to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Hindsight also shows that it was an outrage that needed not to have occurred in the turmoil of generational religious tumult.

It’s a common misconception to say that the Islamic Revolution led to a break in US-Iran relations. When Khomeini returned from exile on February 1, 1979, the US Embassy kept functioning. Indeed, it was only because the United States was so determined to keep relations and restore them to ‘normalcy’ that so many American diplomats were in Iran and were vulnerable to seizure more than nine months after Khomeini’s return.
The news this morning reminded us that there is a tide of social change in progress still in progress in Iran. Recent protests in Iran have resulted in 451 protesters killed and 60 security forces injured. This appears to be a continuation of strong female protests against the religious police who enforce Iranian codes of dress and conduct. Young women were injured, jailed and some died. This is a recurring regional theme that the Obama Administration decided to support. We would have to look up the current position on Islamic theology to unscramble it in detail, and other more intelligent observers have spent a thousand years unsuccessfully trying to do that.

This morning the flat-screens are advertising that the better part of a hundred attacks have been made on US Forces in Iraq and Syria. We forgot war is still in progress and the Cease-Fire is a pause, rather than being a new outbreak of violence. We last had a shred of optimism that Iran might have a successful reformation that would enable to women to dress how they please. Or that American military personnel are not being attacked in Iraq or Syria.

As you can see, there is plenty of room for interpretation in all this. That includes the information that is “Mis-” and “Mal-” in origin. We have had several decades of being wrong on this, but who knows? Maybe this will all work out in a manner that brings peace to some of the places currently at war. The reports this morning are discouraging in their familiarity. This part of it has already dragged on for more than four decades. Or better said, our part in this conflict is a smaller part of a long struggle and one that has taken most of our professional lives.

We will see where this leads us next, won’t we?

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com