by Richard Stern

They're advertising discounted fares to Teheran for $623.00 The airline slogan is "Book Now And Save Big." You find it in the margin of pieces reporting on the months' long interrogation and now imprisonment of the Iranian-American scholar, Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson School of International Affairs. Dr. Esfandiari was finishing one of her biannual visits to her 93-year-old mother and preparing to return to her job and husband, the Iranian-Jewish scholar, Professor Shaul Bakhash of George Mason University when she was robbed of her passport at knife point by four thugs. She went to the authorities to secure the necessary travel papers. First, she was heard, then lengthily--over weeks-- interrogated, then accused of being a Zionist and American spy and finally--as of this date--locked up in the infamously sinister Evin Prison where, some years ago, Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian-Iranian journalist, was beaten to death and where, a year ago, the Canadian-Iranian philosopher Ramun Jahanbigloo was confined until he "confessed" that his work played a role in inciting "a velvet revolution" against the benign regime of President Ahmadinejad. Two others are now enduring similar hospitality, Kian Tajbaksh, a health consultant for Open Society, and Jamchat Parnaz who works for U.S.-funded Radio Farda. That the charges of espionage and state subversion against them are almost surely unfair, if not absurd, is almost irrelevant. In the twisty sub-diplomatic world which employs thousands of people from almost every country, fairness is something to be laughed at, absurdity relished. Anybody can indict almost anyone for wrongdoing. Make this unbeautiful underside of international relations the public side, cease all diplomatic talk, display flotillas of might in neighboring waters, form, incite, ignite, and supply groups who are or will be enemies of your evermore inimical opposite, and before long, the world's arms makers will be doubling the dividends of their stock holders. I suppose it helps to have a tradition of wrathful vengeance behind one. (Cf. "The Sopranos.") Recently, the more excitable portion of the Muslim world was infuriated at Pope Benedict XVI's citation of a Byzantine king's words about a sanguinary tendency in Islamic recruitment. This noble tradition may have been inaugurated by the great Prophet himself. After the Jewish tribal leader and poet Ka'b ibn al-Asharf not only opposed his efforts but wrote poems which were thought to be insulting to Moslem women, Muhammed is said to have said, "He [Ka'b] has openly assumed enmity to us and speaks evil of us and he has gone over to the polytheists and has made them gather against us for fighting." He called upon his followers to kill Ka'b. Muhammad ibn Maslama offered his services and those of four others. By pretending to have turned against the Prophet, Muhammad ibn Maslama and the others enticed Ka'b out of his fortress on a moonlit night, and killed him in spite of his vigorous resistance. Anyone for Teheran? Book Now and Save Big.