Can Iran learn from the U-2 incident?
Colum Lynch reports here on Iran’s complaint to the United Nations about American drone overflights. The incident has an interesting parallel in the Soviet complaint to the UN after they downed an American U-2 spyplane flying over Soviet territory in May 1960. The Soviets worked hard to make diplomatic hay of the incident in New ...
Colum Lynch reports here on Iran's complaint to the United Nations about American drone overflights. The incident has an interesting parallel in the Soviet complaint to the UN after they downed an American U-2 spyplane flying over Soviet territory in May 1960. The Soviets worked hard to make diplomatic hay of the incident in New York, calling a Security Council meeting (televised live) where Andrei Gromyko warned of American recklessnesss:
Today we are concerned with a high-handed invasion of the air space of a sovereign state, tomorrow warships will be dispatched to invade its territorial waters and the day after tomorrow one pretext or another will be used to land divisions on its territory; one step leads to another.
The Iranians may be tempted to take a page from the Soviet playbook. But they had better recall how that confrontation ended. U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge responded to the Soviet attack--and he had props. He hauled onto the Security Council table a Great Seal of the United States, a gift from the Soviets to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Lodge proceeded to extract from the seal a listening device, smoothly shifting the focus from the U-2 incident to Soviet espionage and perfidy. If Iran does seek a formal meeting, Susan Rice might be wise to come with some tricks up her sleeve.
Colum Lynch reports here on Iran’s complaint to the United Nations about American drone overflights. The incident has an interesting parallel in the Soviet complaint to the UN after they downed an American U-2 spyplane flying over Soviet territory in May 1960. The Soviets worked hard to make diplomatic hay of the incident in New York, calling a Security Council meeting (televised live) where Andrei Gromyko warned of American recklessnesss:
Today we are concerned with a high-handed invasion of the air space of a sovereign state, tomorrow warships will be dispatched to invade its territorial waters and the day after tomorrow one pretext or another will be used to land divisions on its territory; one step leads to another.
The Iranians may be tempted to take a page from the Soviet playbook. But they had better recall how that confrontation ended. U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge responded to the Soviet attack–and he had props. He hauled onto the Security Council table a Great Seal of the United States, a gift from the Soviets to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Lodge proceeded to extract from the seal a listening device, smoothly shifting the focus from the U-2 incident to Soviet espionage and perfidy. If Iran does seek a formal meeting, Susan Rice might be wise to come with some tricks up her sleeve.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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