I try to keep politics out of my public presence, but I just have to comment on the imprisonment in Iran of journalist Roxana Saberi.

All the pundits and experts I’ve listened to have explained the imprisonment as a inflammatory instigation by hard-right partisans in Iran, who just want to push our buttons and derail any hope for detente.

I doubt it.

This is certainly a TEST of how the Obama administration will react to, and deal with, a disagreement with the Iranian government.

Some History.

According to Mary Renault ( a well-respected historical conjecture author who based her work on ancient and eyewitness acccounts), in her book The Persian Boy, Roxana is a “close approximation” in Western language of the name of Alexander the Great’s Bactrian second wife, translating from Persian to Greek to English. Supposedly meaning “little star”, Roxana is more properly pronounced with the accent of the first syllable – WROX-ann-ah.

Back to Alexander.

At the time he took Roxana as his second wife (around 330 B.C.), he was almost literally king of the world. The only rival at the time was the Persian Empire, which held massive sway over the Middle East and Central Asia. Alexander had temporarily subdued the Persians – even razed the beautiful city of Persepolis to the ground.

Now – what would Alexander do if his wife had been abducted by the ancient Persian empire?

Most likely he’d have turned his army around, pursued and waged war with no quarter until he had her back and had reduced the Persians to total subservience. No doubt with disastrous results. Alexander was Great, but his empire did not hold for long following his death.

But this never happened. It’s just a “what if.”

Are we going to mimic Alexander? Or are we going to model ourselves after the Roman Empire instead?  The Romans -  despite disagreements, political intrigue and skirmishes – managed to keep peace with the Middle Eastern and Central Asian powers from Armenia to India for hundreds of years. (Except for the Levant and Palestine – I am definitely not counting those areas at the moment.)

I repeat – in my opinion this is a test in the time-honored tradition of Persia going back several thousand years. Of course they know the charges are groundless! It is our RESPONSE they want to see.