In 1979, a Louisiana sheriff arrested exactly 53 Iranian students in Louisiana chanting “Death to the Shah,” “53” then being the number of US hostages held in Tehran by Iranian students. Although subsequently forced to release them, that sheriff had instinctively played the war strategy game of “Tit for Tat” with Iran.
According to political scientist Robert Axelrod’s landmark book, “The Complexity of Cooperation,” “Tit for Tat” has political applications positively impacting how nations behave. Rather than adopt increasingly belligerent postures to win, players must do unto each other as they have been done to by each other, or rise above it and behave better. And even if they are harmed, the most forgiving player wins the most points. The scenario is simple: You take my people hostage, I take your people hostage, and then your next move is some kind of cooperation, ideally with forgiveness attached. Then, everybody lets their hostages go.
Just like Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did Wednesday in releasing the British sailors, which puts him ahead, game-wise, of an increasingly isolated, beleaguered and unpopular US President George W. Bush.
“Tit for Tat” sounds too goody-good to be a real war game. But it is the safest way to break the impasse presented by another important war game also being played out in Iraq — “Prisoner’s Dilemma.”
Leave Iraq? We Americans wish we could. But despite Bush’s exhortations of eventual “victory,” Americans are, in fact, prisoners of Iraq. What a dilemma! But the key lies in knowing that we are not the only prisoners of Iraq. Iran is a prisoner there, too. It’s just not yet fully aware of this fact.
In the classic “Prisoner’s Dilemma” game, two suspects are arrested for a crime. Lacking sufficient evidence, the police separate them and offer each the same bargain: If one testifies against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer is freed and the silent suspect receives the full 10-year sentence. If both stay silent, both are sentenced to six months on minor charges. If both betray one another, each receives a four-year sentence.
Neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the other will make. The “dilemma” each player faces is that it is better for one to confess, unless both deny taking part. But if one thinks the other will deny taking part and implicate the other, then one should confess first, and go free. But how to know for sure?
In the Iraq game, it’s impossible for players like the United States and Iran “to know for sure” what the other has done or will do because although they are engaged in fundamentally the same, internationally-illegal enterprise — occupying and controlling Iraq — neither has hardly spoken with the other for 28 years.
Who’s playing?
On one side, there’s the “coalition” of United States, the United Kingdom, a smattering of other states and over 120,000 heavily-armed “private contractors” — a euphemism for mercenaries whose owner-operators reap billions of taxpayer dollars. On the other side, there’s Iran and its various “advisers” seeking to create Shiite hegemony, a splintered, struggling “Iraq,” and many thousands of various militias, insurgents, and terrorists showing ruthless persistence, deadly inventiveness and an impressive survival ability against enemies far better armed and led. Although Bush now blames “Sunni insurgents” for Iraq’s debacle, Iraqis themselves say the conflict now transcends religion, at least for them. With over 100 dead Iraqis a day, they just want the game to stop.
Luckily, there’s a way to solve “Prisoner’s Dilemma:” Start playing “Tit for Tat.”
The Iranians started playing in June, 2004 when they seized eight crew reportedly violating Iranian territorial waters, but avoided serious escalation. The most recent “tat” came on Dec. 24, 2006, when American soldiers arrested several Iranians, including at least two diplomats, in Iraq. The Iranians “titted” by requesting talks. It’s unclear how the United States responded. But the beauty of “tit for tat” when played to win is that the lower-keyed responses set the stage for resolution. Iran responded to US by cooperating rather than immediately retaliating.
The second “tat” came on Jan. 11, 2007 when US soldiers raided a building in Erbil, Iraq that Iranians called their “Consulate,” seized five Iranians, and confiscated their computers and documents without explanation. When Bush ignored Iran’s request for parley, Iran simply copied America’s last move on March 23, 2007, seizing 15 British sailors in the same waterway.
Likewise, when the “coalition” complained that Iranians were mistreating their captives, Iran televised the prisoners smoking cigarettes and eating spicy lamb. Iranian “tats” of publishing the sailors’ “confessions” were met by coalition “tits” of “brainwashing” accusations. Iran’s release of the British sailors was a strong “next” move.
Meanwhile, news reports indicate the “coalition” has yet to release the Erbil Iranians. Maybe that and renewing diplomatic relations with Iran would be America’s next and best response.
