As you read these lines, you will probably hear the latest on the Iranian nuclear negotiations. Tehran’s response to the latest Western offer – to further develop Iran’s low-enriched uranium in France and Russia and return it to Iran – is likely to be negative. Iranian officials will let the world know – once again – that nuclear energy is their “inalienable right,” that the proud Iranian nation will not bow to bullying, and, at any rate, they are not seeking nuclear weapons.
American officials will respond by saying that Iranian intransigence poses a grave threat to regional and international security, that they are suspicious of Iran’s motives in having a nuclear energy program, and they will threaten Iran with a new set of sanctions at the United Nations Security Council.
And hundreds of op-eds and blogs will argue about what to do. Some will blame Iran and call it a “terrorist state.” Others will use this as another example to show “American imperialism” at work.
I will refrain from joining those ranks. Instead, I will talk about two national burial grounds outside of Washington and Tehran: Arlington National Cemetery and Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery.
Arlington National Cemetery, located south of Washington across the Potomac River, came into being during the American Civil War (1861-65). The federal government expropriated the land from General Robert E. Lee as punishment, whose service to the Confederate side had caused the war to continue for 4 years.
Since 1865, the United States has buried over 300,000 servicemen and women at Arlington National Cemetery. Many families agree that the honor of having their loved ones buried there eases their suffering (as much as it could be eased). Every Memorial Day (May 25) in the United States, many families and former comrades visit their loved ones at Arlington.
South of Tehran, Behesht-e Zahra serves a similar purpose. Unlike Arlington, however, it is a burial ground for ordinary Iranians as well. But of the 250,000 who are buried there, the majority was combatants in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88). Saddam Hussein had started that war and sustained it with massive Western military support. Most of those Iranian soldiers were young boys under the age of 25 when they died. And similar to Memorial Day in America, on every Thursday and religious holiday in Iran, relatives go to Behest-e Zahra to visit those soldiers.
The graves of fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters at these places are somber reminders of the real price of war.
So before Iranian and American policy-makers make up their mind about the next step, it would be humane for them to spend some time at Behesht-e Zahra and Arlington. Nothing can bring back the dead. But there is no good reason to start another Middle East war that would create new ones.
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Barın Kayaoğlu is a Ph.D. candidate in history at The University of Virginia and a regular contributor to the Journal of Turkish Weekly.
E-mail: kayaoglu@virginia.edu
