Americans who are enamored with the almost mystical romanticism of foreign law (including several U.S. Supreme Court justices) must be in seventh heaven.

Iran, you see, has caught, jailed, tried, convicted and sentenced an American “spy,” all in less than three months.  Moreover, no less than Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced that Roxana Saberi must have the right to defend herself, and Iran’s chief judge has ordered a “quick and fair” appeal, which she is sure to get.

The catching part is really unfortunate, coming as it does in the middle of the Great Satan’s policy meltdown with regard to intelligence techniques.  Had they not been otherwise occupied, perhaps a bunch of former and current U.S. intelligence chiefs could have written to President Ahmadinejad saying that she is not a spy and asking that she not be tried.  Instead, they were too busy writing their own President, asking that he not publicly release classified documents relating to U.S. interrogation techniques.  Maybe they would have had greater success with one of the most stable, consistent and respected current world leaders.

The catching part is even more unfortunate when you understand how great Ms. Saberi’s cover was if she is a spy.  A former Miss North Dakota who has reported for NPR and the BBC, holding dual U.S./Iranian citizenship, Ms. Saberi has been in Iran for six years “working on a book.”

Not since feminist icon Gloria Steinem ran a C.I.A. front group in the late 1950s and early 1960s (before she was a feminist icon) has there been such great cover (that we know of, although we’ve long had questions about Angelina Jolie), probably something out of the C.I.A.’s back to the future handbook.

According to Ms. Saberi’s father, a resident of Fargo, North Dakota, she was arrested after buying a bottle of wine, which is illegal in Iran, we are led to believe.  But anyone who understands spy tradecraft knows that coded messages written on wine corks (particularly those used for the good French stuff) is much better than that crude neophyte chalking of park benches, so much the movie rage.

Even in the sentencing of Ms. Saberi to only eight years in prison, Iranian justice has shown restraint.  We executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for spying for the Soviet Union (our enemy) and Jonathan Pollard, who pleaded guilty to spying for Israel (our friend), is doing life, including seven years in solitary.  Then, we took our national security secrets seriously.

In truth, we have no idea whatsoever if Roxana Saberi is a spy.  If she is not, for sure, then the public protestations of U.S. officials, including President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, seem decidedly tepid.  Even that of The New York Times, which we thought loved foreign law, is stronger, going so far as to theorize that Iranian “government hard-liners may be trying to sabotage President Obama’s effort to engage Tehran after 30 years of mutual isolation.” (Why can’t we be so astute as to interpret every act in the world as a personal attack on President Obama?) 

If she is indeed not a spy, then she might be legitimately considered a hostage (that’s happened before in Iran, as some may recall), although one certainly cannot expect a military response under current policy, since she is seemingly not in “imminent danger.”

To those who think we are silly and foolish not to conclude that Roxana Saberi could not possibly be an American spy, we would remind them that it took more than half a century for there to be proof positive that American lefty journalist I.F. Stone was indeed a spy for the Soviets, and the facts of almost all spy cases are debated for years.

Spying is a strange and dirty business, as it must be.  Why, it’s almost as strange and dirty as all those Congresspeeps trying now to distance themselves from their almost certain prior knowledge of U.S. interrogation techniques for which they now want to hang others.