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When President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country had over 6000 centrifuges and Israeli officials immediately expressed doubt, and when U.S. analysts and photographic experts reported a recent picture of an Iranian missile test was digitally altered to conceal a missile that failed to launch; it reminded me of how nations and armies, especially when threatened or threatening to strike, often exaggerate their own military might while dismissing their opponents. Take for example Pericles of Athens and General George Washington.

At the start of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE and prior to a major battle with Sparta, Frontinus-a loyal soldier to Pericles, noticed a grove of trees dedicated to Pluto and visible to both armies. Frontinus took a man of enormous stature, dressed him up with high buckskins, purple robes and flowing hair, and placed him in the grove mounted high on a chariot with streaming white horses. This man, who was made to look like the god Pluto, gave the appearance of the Greek gods being allied with Pericles and the Athenians. The deception worked as the superstitious Spartans quickly retreated. (1)

General George Washington used exaggeration to confound the British during the American Revolution. While encamped at Valley Forge Washington knew his insurgent army was in trouble. Thousands of troops had deserted and rumors of a mutiny were spreading. Knowing an attack by the British would be devastating, Washington prepared fake documents in his own hand-writing reporting nonexistent infantry and cavalry regiments. The papers also falsified military maneuvers and were then passed to the British through double agents. Even with a much larger and superior force, the British mistakenly assumed an assault would be fatal. Washington’s fledgling army remained together. (2)

For anyone who is bewildered about President Ahmadinejad’s challenge to the U.S. of a “fatal and terrible war” over Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and his claim that “the big powers are going down,” one only needs to recall how nations in the past, believing they had no other recourse but military defense to keep their dignity intact, often resorted to overstating their military might and capabilities. Has the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, along with threats of an imminent attack, encouraged Iran to overstate its military might? Has the close proximity of U.S. military bases along Iran’s border forced this nation to expand its geopolitical and armed role in the Middle East?

Military exaggerations can and do occasionally backfire. When the U.S. gave Iraq’s Saddam Hussein the green light to invade Kuwait-after years of arming him and using him as a buffer against Iran’s Islamic Revolution-and then threatened him with an attack, Hussein boasted of biological weapons, a well-equipped million man army, the distance and accuracy of his Scud Missiles, and a “Mother of all Battles.” President George Bush I played up these exaggerations in the 24-hour news cycle while censoring reports about Iraq’s outdated military gear, conscripted soldiers, and its missing delivery system for biological weapons. Bush I was able to achieve a military coup by manipulating the fears of U.S. citizens and staging massive armed deployments to the Middle East. (The Scud Missiles were so overestimated that 28 U.S. troops committed suicide in the Saudi Desert even before the first battle.) Saddam Hussein was soundly defeated.

But sometimes, a belligerent Superpower can use military exaggeration to its own demise. Prior to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld overstated the new Pentagon’s Rapid Reactionary Forces-a page taken from the Nazis playbook called blitzkrieg, the Shock and Awe Campaigns, and the professionalism of U.S. troops. Although U.S. forces quickly conquered Baghdad, they failed to secure supply lines and did not plan for post war reconstruction and peace. The Shock and Awe Campaigns were imprecise killing and murdering innocent children and women. (The UN just reported a U.S. air strike killed a minimum of 90 Afghan civilians!) Some U.S. troops behaved dishonorably by humiliating, torturing, raping, and even executing Iraqi civilians-which was/is more common than most Americans are willing to admit.

Israel has now claimed it purchased 90 F-16 fighter planes that can fly as far as Iran and back without refueling. At the same time, Iran is warning if attacked, it could easily close the Persian Gulf waterway and the flow of oil. Not to be outdone, Israel is boasting of Dolphin attack submarines capable of firing nuclear-armed warheads. Iran reported it has new long-range naval weapons and has just launched a dummy satellite-which the U.S. immediately dismissed as a “dramatic” failure. Surpassing all of these military statements is the U.S. Navy claiming it has just completed Operation Brimstone in the Atlantic ocean. Hailed as a “naval mega exercise,” the “super armada” is sailing for the Persian Gulf and is threatening to “cripple” Iran’s infrastructure with a possible naval blockade.

Exaggerating one’s military strength may have worked for Pericles and Washington, but it does not work today. The use of science and technology in producing armaments, not to mention the speed and destructive nature of weaponry, in no way sanitizes war or produces indiscriminate missiles. Nations should instead exaggerate reciprocal nuclear disarmament, peaceful coexistence, and overemphasize the right to nuclear enrichment instead of the wrong in maintaining nuclear warheads. President Ahmadinegad was right in stating, “Nuclear bombs belong to the 20th century. We are living in a new century. We have the same desire, to be together, for the cause of world peace.” If such peaceful exaggerations are not sought after, then military exaggerations-and believing in the exaggeration itself to solve a dispute-may become all to real, as was and is shown today in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dallas Darling - darling@wn.com

(Dallas Darling is the author of The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. While a pastor and social-activist living in the U.S, he served the poor in rural communities and inner cities. Dallas also traveled and worked extensively throughout Latin America participating in peace with justice movements. Dallas teaches U.S. and World History and is a regular contributor to www.worldnews.com) Subscribe=>

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