Two hapless Americans, Shane Bauer and Joseph Fattal, have been held hostage in Iran for eighteen months. Hikers, they and Sarah Shourd, were taken prisoner in what is generally described as “an unmarked border area between Iraq and Iran.”
As much as I sympathize with their problem, I keep asking myself how can three Americans, two aged 29 and one 32, have been so oblivious to the danger of hiking anywhere near Iran, let alone in northern Iraq? Their naiveté is appalling. The world is filled with other places to hike.