ShareThisWith predictable cynicism, Iran is preparing to charge three young American backpackers with espionage. The trio was arrested in July upon straying into Iran while hiking in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq.
The United States has vehemently denied that Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27, who were teaching and studying in the Mideast, were spies. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the accusations "baseless."
And there are indications that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad didn't believe it, either. Until now, he had treated it as a simple case of trespass and urged the courts to deal with the case quickly and with "maximum leniency." This past weekend, he told reporters in Turkey, "Hopefully, they will have an appropriate answer in the court, and hopefully they will convince the judge that they did not have any intention of crossing the border illegally."
But on Monday, in a possible indication of deep factionalism within the regime, the nation's top prosecutor told Iran's news agency that the three had been accused of espionage and that a decision on whether formal charges would be filed will be made in "the not-distant future." Iran's legal system skips over such niceties as open trials, defense counsels and cross-examination of witnesses. The verdict is whatever the government says it is.
In short, the three U.S. adventurers are hostages, an area where Iran has considerable expertise. And no one is fooled. The Swedish president of the European Union, which has been known to give Tehran the benefit of the doubt on occasion, warned against using "the lives of very young people for political purposes."
In January, the regime arrested an Iranian-American journalist, Roxanna Saberi, and quickly convicted her of espionage. She was released in May, followed in July by the release of five Iranians, whom Tehran insists were diplomats, held by the United States in Iraq for three years.
Iran is desirous of learning the whereabouts of a nuclear scientist and a senior defense official -- one that disappeared on a pilgrimage to Mecca, the other on a trip to Turkey. The two are believed to have defected, but the Iranian government insists they were kidnapped by the United States.
And Iran is involved in delicate nuclear negotiations in which the United States, the major European nations, including Russia, and the United Nations are trying to get Iran to live up to an agreement they thought had been reached for Iran to ship its low-enriched uranium abroad for reprocessing.
One way or another, Washington is likely to get a bill for the three hikers' faulty map or bad sense of direction.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
NO you are wrong, I say
NO you are wrong, I say spies, saboteurs and assassins. These guys and some others that are guilty need to be punished. These 3 are part of a bigger gang "MOSSAD". How can any one believe that these 4 were just having fun visiting the good old Iraq!! The most volatile and dangerous region in the Middle East right now? There is a war going on you know, truck bombing etc. Would you go into the wilderness here in the US or even the Central park in the New York city for a walk after dark? They had alcohol and Booze with them in the most Islamic country in the M.E. They left a friend behind in Iraq, supposedly sick, all by himself. But they were able to use their satellite cell phones for all their needs. This picture is not convincing me, not to mention the Iranians. On top of that they are Jewish. So, go figure.