POKER BY THE HONOR CODE:

Saddam's Honor (James Bowman, American Spectator, 4/4/2003)

We may yet find the nerve gases and the anthrax that President Bush promised us were there, but even if we do, I believe that it is not improbable that Saddam Hussein would have refused to give them up even if he hadn't had any. The point isn't that he wanted these weapons for their own sake, either to use or to threaten to use. He just couldn't be seen to accede to the demands, still less to the threats, of an outside power. This is because of the way an honor culture works. To see what I mean, consider Saddam's behavior in his interview with Dan Rather.

There, you may remember, Saddam pointedly denied that he had the al-Samoud missiles, or that, if he had them, he would destroy them. Yet he did have them and was already on the point of destroying them! How can we make sense of this, which sounds to us in the West like reverse hypocrisy: pretending to be more bad and intransigent than you really are. But to Saddam, admitting that he (a) had the missiles and (b) was willing to destroy them, even though this was in fact the case, would have made him look weak and craven on both points. And looking strong is all that he, like most of those brought up according to Arab and Muslim ideas of honor, really cares about.

Bowman apparently thinks that Saddam, and other Islamists, are poker players who never fold, no matter how poor their cards, because losing a hand would be unbearably shameful. If that's so, they'll soon learn that bluffing is a poor strategy when your opponent holds a straight flush. If they continue overplaying their cards, all the chips will end up on our side of the table.

Which brings us to:

IRAN'S DECISION:
Mullahs Disagreeing (Amir Taheri, NRO, 4/4/2003)

Hassan Rouhani, a junior mullah who is secretary general of the High Council of National Defense, says that Iran should be prepared for "preemptive action" to forestall U.S. attempts at using force against the Islamic Republic.

"The Americans will not dare think of a full-scale military invasion of Iran," he says. "But they will certainly use soft war and low intensity tactics to topple our regime. We must, therefore, be ready to take preemptive action. The most effective way is to open new political and military fronts against Israel."

Sooner or later, Rouhani, we're going to see your hand. Think twice about raising the stakes while holding a pair of deuces.

Posted by Paul Jaminet at April 4, 2003 12:21 PM