Writing to his trusted ally, the Marquis de Lafayette, after the War of Independence, George Washington believed it "the highest disgrace" that Americans were "tributary to such banditti who might for half the sum that is paid them be exterminated from the Earth." Those "banditti" were the Barbary pirates of North Africa who preyed on American merchant ships in the Mediterranean, enslaving their crews and endangering the nascent republic’s economy.But lacking the naval power to protect its foreign trade, the United States paid monetary "tribute" to Barbary, inducing it not to attack.The practice sparked a visceral debate between John Adams, who favored giving in to extortion over using force, and Thomas Jefferson, who preferred to "raise ships and men to fight the pirates into reason [rather] than money to bribe them." Today, two-and-a-half centuries after declaring independence, the United States is grappling with many of the same questions that challenged its Founders.
To what degree should Americans defend the freedom of navigation through a vital international waterway? Should they stand up to or pay off a Middle East power threatening it? Instead of the Mediterranean, at stake today is the Strait of Hormuz, and in place of Barbary is the Islamic Republic of Iran. The ayatollahs’ worldview is almost identical to the pirates'.In a 1786 meeting with Jefferson and Adams in London, Tripoli’s ambassador Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja insisted that Barbary was sovereign in the Mediterranean and that no nation could traverse it without paying a massive toll.NO RETREAT AT HORMUZ — IRAN MUST NOT CONTROL THE WORLD’S ENERGY LIFELINEAugust 1804: Tracers arc in the sky as ships of the U.S.
navy bombard Tripoli in an action against a ruler who supported the Tripolitan (Barbary) pirates.The pirates demanded protection money from all ships and the US decided to go to war to release their hold on the area.
(Photo by MPI/Getty Images)He further explained "t...