The New Criterion

A smile is a curious thing. It can be a spontaneous expression of pleasure, a friendly, welcoming gesture, gently solicitous, signifying camaraderie and easy fellow-feeling. A smile can also be a heart-wrinkling recognition of humor, the explosion of a good joke, the sly Cheshire-cat acknowledgment of paradox. But a smile can signify other, less pleasing things, too: the anxious rictus of hysteria; the gloat of mendacity; the rapacious leer of lasciviousness; the contemptuous snort of derision; the sinister, acid grin of madness, cruelty, megalomania. A smile, like the laughter that is its common accompaniment, can be demonic as well as humanizing, evil as well as nurturing.

I thought about what different meanings a smile can convey when the 15 British hostages were released by Iran the other day. The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was on hand in all the news clips, beaming his trademark grin as he announced his "gift" to the British people. As I wrote at the time, the release of those hostages was no gift, but rather "the bitter codicil of this latest instance of Iran’s criminal insolence." I might have added that Ahmadinejad’s grin conveyed not the open palm of friendship but a bitter, contemptuous triumphalism.

I think it is worth keeping Ahmadinejad’s grin in mind as we try to untangle the meaning of Iran’s actions--and the West’s inaction. The hostage mini-crisis is already receeding into the oblivion of tomorrow’s news cycle. But the event is fraught with significance and political, diplomatic implications. In his aptly titled reflection Britain’s Humiliation -- and Europe’s, Charles Krauthammer points out that

Iran has pulled off a tidy little success with its seizure and subsequent release of those 15 British sailors and marines: a pointed humiliation of Britain, with a bonus demonstration of Iran’s intention to push back against coalition challenges to its assets in Iraq. All with total impunity. Further, it exposed the utter futility of all those transnational institutions -- most prominently the European Union and the U.N. -- that pretend to maintain international order.

You would think maintaining international order means, at a minimum, challenging acts of piracy. No challenge here. Instead, a quiet capitulation.

The quid pro quos were not terribly subtle. An Iranian "diplomat’’ who had been held for two months in Iraq is suddenly released. Equally suddenly, Iran is granted access to the five Iranian "consular officials’’ -- Revolutionary Guards who had been training Shiite militias to kill Americans and others -- whom the U.S. had arrested in Irbil in January. There may have been other concessions we will never hear about. But the salient point is that what got this unstuck was American action.

Krauthammer goes on to ask "Where then was the EU?" Where, indeed. For Americans, it is worth pondering that question. It is also worth asking in what sense or even whether we can really regard the EU as our allies. As Krauthammer concluded,

The capture and release of the 15 British hostages illustrate once again the fatuousness of the "international community’’ and its great institutions. You want your people back? Go to the EU and get stiffed. Go to the Security Council and get a statement that refuses even to "deplore’’ this act of piracy. (You settle for a humiliating expression of "grave concern"). Then turn to the despised Americans. They’ll deal some cards and bail you out.

Meanwhile, as we try to digest the ramifications of this sordid episode, we Americans are left with Lenin’s famous question: "What is to be done?" Amir Taheri has some characteristically good advice today in the London Times

The debate on what to do about the mullahs hits a dead end because it is limited to two options: regime change or surrender. Those who blame the West for the world’s evils urge surrender, in atonement of sins supposedly committed against Iran over centuries. They hope that once the mullahs are given everything, they would start behaving reasonably. This argument ignores the fact that the Khomeinist regime’s political DNA would not allow it to act reasonably. A scorpion does not sting because it wants to misbehave but because it is programmed to do so.

When it comes to the regime-change option, the usual suspects who still cry for Saddam Hussein would be up in arms. President Ahmadinejad knows that no American or British leader can garner popular support for preemptive war against Iran.

The alternative, however, is not one of surrender or regime change. The Western democracies could give the Islamic republic a taste of its own medicine - and engage it in the kind of low-intensity warfare that Iran itself indulges in. The mischief must not be cost-free. It would be resisted though diplomatic and economic means as well as through support for the democratic and reformist forces inside Iran. Throughout history, adversaries end up by adopting aspects of each other’s strategy.

The Islamic Republic wants a Khomeinist Middle East. The "Infidel" want a democratic, pro-West Middle East. The two visions are incompatible. Eventually, one must win as the other loses. As the British celebrate the return of their hostages they would do well to decide which vision deserves support.

We Americans are faced with pretty much the same alternatives. As we ponder our answer, it is worth keeping the image Ahmadinejad’s grin in mind.It is not a call to action, exactly, but its minatory quality should help remind us of what sort of character we are dealing with.