For the second time in days the U.S. Navy has saved Iranian fishermen. As you will recall, it was earlier this month that the Navy rescued Iranian fishermen being held by Somali pirates. That incident came amid rising tensions and threats from Iran that it would close the strategic Strait of Hormuz (through which 20 percent of the world’s oil flows) in retaliation for Western sanctions. This report from The Washington Post nicely contrasts the humanitarian U.S. actions with the recent threats from Iran:

A U.S. Coast Guard cutter, the Monomoy, picked up the Iranians off the coast of Oman about 3 a.m. Tuesday after their cargo dhow, the Ya-Hussayn, signalled with flares and flashlights that they were having engine trouble, Navy officials said [...] On Thursday, the Navy liberated 13 Iranian fishermen who had been hijacked and held hostage for several weeks by Somali pirates, also in the Arabian Gulf. In both cases, U.S. officials portrayed the Iranian sailors as extremely grateful for the emergency help — a sharp counterpoint to the Iranian government’s recent threat of war if U.S. forces don’t stay out of the nearby Persian Gulf. “Without your help, we were dead,” Hakim Hamid-Awi, the owner of the Ya-Hussayn, was quoted as saying by a U.S. Fifth Fleet account of the rescue. “Thank you for all that you did for us.” The Good Samaritan acts by U.S. forces also stood in contrast to the Iranian government’s harsh announcement Monday that it had sentenced an Iranian-American citizen to death, allegedly for spying.

This report from the Christian Science Monitor also does the same with this well-worded headline: Iran keeps issuing threats, US keeps saving Iranian sailors

Will the U.S. rescue operations have any impact on the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program? Not likely. We can hope that reports of these rescues will reach the ears of Iranian citizens and lead them to question the anti-American propaganda fed to them by their government. Even if that happened, recent events in Iran would make us question what role, if any, public opinion plays in shaping Iranian foreign policy. Just ask those democratic reform activists. Oh wait, you can’t, because they were imprisoned or executed.

The rescues at sea are in keeping with the finest traditions of the U.S. Navy. They are also an example of what political scientists call “international norms,” broadly accepted standards of international behavior. There’s not a navy in the world that would ignore a distress call. It’s clear that if Iran were to obtain a nuclear weapon the entire region would send out a distress call. Hopefully the U.S. Navy will still be on hand (budget permitting) to lead the rescue.

Image Credit: Christian Science Monitor/U.S. Navy/AP

Any suspicions that the US went into Afghanistan to secure access to resources went out the window last week. On Wednesday, Tom A. Peter over at the Christian Science Monitor reported, “China’s National Petroleum Corporation became the first foreign company to tap into Afghanistan’s oil and gas reserves. Chinese officials have estimated that the deal could be worth at least $700 million, but some say China could earn up to 10 times that.”

That foreign companies would exploit Afghanistan’s natural resources was inevitable. After 30 years of war, local firms just don’t have the ability in terms of talent or money to do the job themselves. Abdul Rahim Hashami, CEO of the New Afghan Petroleum Company told Mr. Peter, “I don’t think any Afghan companies have the business background or experience related to this…. The only thing that I can hope, is that Afghans are in some way a part of it, as partners or used in one way or another so Afghans can be a part of the project.” I am old enough to remember when that was called “neo-colonialism.”

However, when your country’s GDP (excluding the opium trade, of course) is 97% foreign aid, neo-colonialism may not look that bad. Foreign aid is helpful, but a local mining industry that generates jobs and that may retain some of the profits is much better. The China National Petroleum Company has agreed to pay as much as 70% of the profits to the Kabul government, in addition to a 15% royalty on oil production as well as paying a corporate tax of 20%.

Much has been written about the $1 trillion worth of natural resources in Afghanistan, not just oil but also iron, copper and so on. Missing from this has been a discussion of extraction costs, and they render the exploitation of a lot of the nation’s underground wealth uneconomic. Energy, in the form of oil and natural gas, is a big exception to this equation. Given its proximity and its thirst for oil, China is a logical partner for the Afghans. And for America, not being first is a boost to its reputation.