Laurent Kretz

We’ve all heard of the movie 300. Some of us even liked it. I, personnaly, saw it twice in the week it came out, on an imax screen, and already a few times on DVD. Visually, it’s one of the most amazing things I’ve seen on a screen.

In brief, 300 tells the story of 300 Spartans who held millions of soldiers of the Persian army invading Greece. To do so, they find the perfect battle field: a narrow passage between steep cliffs and the sea. The battle happened in Thermopylae. They fought with courage and bravery, and managed to held the Persians for a few days, killing tens of thousands of soldiers.

Less of us know that the movie and the tale are very close to reality (if you ever have a chance to watch the History channel documentary The Last Stand of the 300, do it). The numbers are of course exagerated, and modern estimates agree on about 200,000 to 400,000 on the Persian side, and 5,000 to 10,000 on the Greek side.

But what is less obvious in the movie is the role of Themistocles, an athenian general who weakened and eventually blocked the Persians on the the at the battle of Aphetae. The Persian soldiers fighting the 300 on the Thermopylae land passage were supposed to be backed by a thousands war ships arriving on the 300’s back.

But Themistocles lead a very effective offensive on the thousand Persian ships, with only 200 Greek ships. The Persian finally abandon the idea of cutting the 300’s back, after having lost an important part of their fleet. Themistocles is a brillant man and genius strategist from a small village and a humble background, with a thirst for power, and manages to become a powerfull politician in Athen.

Themistocles always thought that Athen needed to defend itself with a strong navy. His opponent, Aristides, pled for a land army. When he arrives in the congress, Athen only owns about 70 warships. According to certain historians, Themistocles clearly saw the danger of a potential invasion of Persia, wheras the congress didn’t see it. So he persuaded the congress of an imediate threat from Aegina, a traditional rival, and succeeded - the fleet of Athenian ships was to reach 200.

Thanks to him, Athen could push back the Persian navy a few years later.

Now to the subject - after this too long introduction.

Bush and Cheney lied about the Weapons of Mass Destruction from Iraq to legitimate an invasion of the country and destituation of Sadam Hussein. And now, we can be pretty sure that any excuse will be good to launch an attack in Iran (more about this in a future post). Some say, and to start with: the B.B.C, that the U.S. has been preparing this attack on Iran since 2005. I have been opposing the method, the means, the goal of the Iraq war, and I will be opposing any attack against Iran. I am not saying that we (international community) should do nothing against the Ahmadinejad regime, but a war is the least and worst of the potential options.

But I just wish I am more clairvoyant than the Athenian congress a few centuries ago …

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