Posted on 07/05/2004 4:18:22 PM PDT by Pokey78
This past week these pages have been filled with daily meditations on the British embrace of loserdom - Boris Johnson, James Delingpole, our friends in the leader pen opposite. I'm not sure I'd pass Norman Tebbit's cricket test myself, but, if I did, I'd be as upset as the rest of the Telegraph types at Accrington Stanley losing in straight sets or Annabel Croft blowing the penalty shoot-out. Hard to take, year in, year out.
None the less, it seems to me this morbid obsession with the national loser fetish obscured the really big British defeat - to Iran, in the Shatt al-Arab water polo. Six Royal Marines and two Royal Navy sailors were intercepted in Iraqi waters, forcibly escorted to Iranian waters, arrested, paraded on TV blindfold, obliged to confess wrongs and recite apologies, and eventually released. Their three boats are still being held by the Iranians.
Mullahs 8, HMG nil.
The curious thing is the lion that didn't roar. Tony Blair has views on everything and is usually happy to expound on them at length - if you'd just arrived from Planet Zongo and were plunked down at a joint Blair/Bush press conference on Iraq or Afghanistan or most of the rest of the world, you'd be forgiven for coming away with the impression that the Prime Minister's doing 90 per cent of the heavy lifting and the President's just there for emergency back-up. Yet, on an act of war and/or piracy perpetrated directly against British forces, Mister Chatty is mum.
Likewise, Jack Straw. The Foreign Secretary goes to Teheran the way other Labour grandees go to Tuscany. He's got a Rolodex full of A-list imams. When in the Islamic Republic, he does that "peace and blessings be upon his name" parenthesis whenever he mentions the Prophet Mohammed, just to show he's cool with Islam, not like certain arrogant redneck cowboys we could mention. And where did all the ayatollah outreach get him? "We have diplomatic relations with Iran, we work hard on those relationships and sometimes the relationships are complicated," he twittered, "but I'm in no doubt that our policy of engagement with the Government of Iran… is the best approach."
Even odder has been the acquiescence of the press. If pictures had been unearthed of some over-zealous Guantanamo guards doing to our plucky young West Midlands jihadi what the Iranian government did on TV to those Royal Marines, two thirds of Fleet Street (including many of my Spectator and Telegraph colleagues) would be frothing non-stop.
Instead, they seem to have accepted the British spin that there's been no breach of the Geneva Convention because the Marines and sailors weren't official prisoners of war, just freelance kidnap victims you can have what sport you wish with.
Why didn't Bush think of that one?
The only tough talk came from an unnamed official, briefing correspondents on the Iranian ambassador's summons to the Foreign Office for a diplomatic dressing down: "It was very much a one-way conversation," the FCO wallah assured the gentlemen of the press.
Do you think that's true? Or do you think it more likely that it was, in fact, a two-way conversation with lots of cajoling and pleading on the British part and reminders that London and Teheran are supposed to be friends?
Washington's position is clear: Iran is a charter member of the axis of evil. (Well, it's clear-ish: State Department types are prone to Jack Straw moments.) But London opted for "engagement" on the usual grounds that if you pretend these fellows are respectable they're more likely to behave respectably. In return, Britain's boys got hijacked and taken on a classic Rogue State bender. And the version being broadcast throughout the Muslim world is that Teheran swatted the infidel and got away with it.
That's what matters: getting away with it. Do you think Mr Straw, fretting over the "complications" of Anglo-Iranian relations, will make the mullahs pay any price for what they did? And, if he doesn't, what conclusions do you think the Islamic Republic will draw from its artful test of Western - or, at any rate, European - resolve? Right now, the British, French and Germans are making a show of getting tough on Iran's nuclear ambitions. Is that "tough" as in "Go ahead, imam, make my day"? Or is it "tough" as in that official's "one-way conversation"? Just a bit of diplo-bluster. If you were the mullahs, you might well conclude that the Europeans don't mean it, that they've decided they can live with a nuclear Iran, and you might as well go full speed ahead.
One difficulty in dealing with the Islamic Republic is that the fellows out in front are sock puppets. Jack Straw is the real British Foreign Secretary. His Iranian counterpart is a man playing the role of foreign minister for international consumption. The big decisions are taken elsewhere. A couple of years ago, there was a lively speech by Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president and now head of the Expediency Council, which sounds like a committee of EU foreign ministers but is actually Iran's highest religious body. Rafsanjani was looking forward to the big day when his side got nukes and settled the Zionist question for ever "since a single atomic bomb has the power to completely destroy Israel, while an Israeli counter-strike can only cause partial damage to the Islamic world."
I'm inclined to take these fellows at their word. Next to Mr Straw and his "complications", these dudes are admirably plain-spoken. But let's suppose Rafsanjani is more cunning, and he understands that perhaps he won't have to use his bomb - that the mere fact of it will enable the country to get its way, in the region and beyond. Wouldn't the events of recent days have confirmed this view? And, if this is what he can get away with now, what might he try to pull when Iran is the first nuclear theocracy?
We Bush warmongers have grown fond of Mr Blair: often, he's a better salesman for American policy than the President. But in the Shatt al-Arab incident for once he was on his own, and Britain's Number One seed was unable to return a single volley. Iran is emboldened, and that's bad news for everyone else.
How does this compare to the China-Spy Plane incident? I recall there was plenty of heated rhetoric but I don't recall the US making China pay in any way. Am I forgetting something?
More contrast than comparison. The Chinese had our guys for about 11 days, and thumbed their noses at us because they knew we really didn't have any military options. But the Iranian spit back the Brits after only 2 days. I think its more likely private pressure from the Brits and U.S. caused such a quick release rather than the Brits giving Iran the full Monica. Steyn appears to assume that the lack of a strong public stance meant that their stance in private was equally wimpy. I don't buy that. And to the extent anyone assumes we didn't back the Brits, I don't buy that either.
! bump pmub !
Ping
The Tories wouldn't have done anything either. What did you expect? The US didn't take any military action against the N. Koreans when they captured the USS Pueblo spy ship and shot down the EC-121 with the loss of all its crew. The N. Koreans still have the Pueblo in their custody. The Iranian incident became a diplomatic incident. No military action was ever going to be taken.
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