following the abduction story, part 18

I started this series of posts in order to follow the fate of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped in Gaza two weeks ago today. There  is nothing new to report. Google News offers this bloc of headlines today:

Two weeks since BBC man missing
BBC News, UK - 2 hours ago
Events are planned in London and Gaza to mark two weeks since BBC reporter Alan Johnston went missing in Gaza. The BBC is planning a satellite linkup …
Gaza rally for BBC reporter News24
Palestinian Journalists Protest as BBC Reporter Remains Hostage in … International Middle East Media Center
Gaza journalists on strike for BBC reporter PRESS TV
Guardian Unlimited - BBC News
all 16 news articles »

There is nothing new to report on this story. Johnston’s kidnapping has been completely overshadowed by a much bigger hostage-taking that affects Britain: Iran’s kidnapping of 15 of its sailors and marines.

The Scotsman reports the response of Britain’s prime minister to this latest outrage: Iran’s actions are “unjustified and wrong.”

The Prime Minister’s forthright comments - his first public statement on the incident - were in stark contrast to the earlier moderate tone coming from British diplomats, anxious not to antagonise the volatile protagonists in Tehran.

If this is the extent of Blair’s “forthright comments,” I think it is only logical to conclude that the West has been enmeshed in the monkeys’ chess game. (No, I am not saying that Iranians are  monkeys or that Muslims are monkeys. I am alluding to this quote from the New York Times, which I also posted in December: [e.a.]

Azar Nafisi, the author of ”Reading Lolita in Tehran,” quoted a former colleague in Tehran who compared dealing with the Islamic Republic to playing chess with a monkey. ”In the middle of the game, the monkey picks up your queen and swallows it,” she said. ”Then what are you going to do? You are dealing with a country that is not going to follow your rules.”

In today’s New York Sun, Benny Avni details Iran’s history of using terror as a tool of diplomacy:

In 2004, Iran similarly kidnapped eight British seamen, only to release them quietly after three days. The equipment seized was proudly displayed by Iran and used for bragging rights. A documentary film on the 2004 kidnapping is frequently screened to Revolutionary Guards as an educational and motivational tool.

Mr. Mottaki yesterday described at length the perceived injustice dealt to Iran by the Security Council during the eight-year 1980s Iran-Iraq War. In Lebanon at that time, Iranian proxies kidnapped anyone Western enough to negotiate over. Deals were then made for the release of hostages in return for Western supplies of weapons to Iran.

That pattern is still in use today. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah famously kidnapped Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev last summer, launching a war with Israel. Rather than negotiating, Hezbollah so far has demanded a huge price in return for any sign that the two soldiers are alive. While Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Syrian-backed terrorists in Gaza, is known to be alive, his fate too is being used as a cruel bargaining chip in Palestinian Arab “peace process” diplomacy.

The resolution passed by the Security Council on Saturday may lead to further internal questioning in Iran of the wisdom of the path taken by Mr. Mottaki’s regime – which may explain why he resorted to the language of veiled threats against London. For Iran, terrorism has always served as a diplomatic tool.

To sharpen that tool, Hezbollah was created in the 1980s by Revolutionary Guards and the Lebanese-born Mr. Mugniyah. Now Mr. Mugniyah and his handlers in Iran are wanted by Interpol and Argentina.

Will Tehran turn them over?

Evidently not. What the West will do about this remains to be seen.

Of course, everything happening in the Middle East (as seen through photo ops and statements released to the press) is a mirage, as Youssef Ibrahim notes (also in the Sun, which is a must-read for those who follow international events).

There is a new American plan and great hope for peace among Arabs and Jews. I have read all about it and heard it on TV all day yesterday. …

The platitudes of this new search are so many, so old, and so repetitive. Go back and check the late 1970s or the heyday of the Oslo accord fever of 1993, and you will encounter the same stuff: last chance, critical moment, now or never, the area is ready, etc.

Here is what is not new. The Arab Quartet is about as useless and toothless as the Arab League itself, none of whose members are prepared to recognize Israel’s right to exist unconditionally. The Israelis are not about to pull out of the West Bank or the Golan Heights of Syria unconditionally, if at all.

Hamas and the other Islamic Palestinian Arab fanatics will continue to lob rockets into Israel. Hezbollah is preparing for the next round in Lebanon of fighting Israelis and Lebanese. The Palestinians will remain at each other throats in Gaza and the West Bank, regardless. Saudi Arabia is scared silly about Iran and the sectarian wars between Shiites and Sunnis on its borders, which is just about the only thing that matters in Riyadh. Egypt is steadily descending into a failed state where the succession to the post of 78-year-old dictator Hosni Mubarak promises to be messy. Jordan has virtually no role to play anywhere and no weight to speak of ever since it lost its West Bank to Israel. And the United Arab Emirates has never had any weight to begin with.

The most startling non-news is that new magical American solution. One newspaper writer asserted Sunday that Secretary Rice ‘’has opened the door to the possibility” she might offer her “own proposals to bridge the divide.” Wow. We can hardly wait.

Indeed.

Also: I will no longer be “following the abduction story.” Sadly, there is no story. There is only the abyss.