Posted on 03/25/2007 5:17:55 AM PDT by Dog
THE official notification, delivered in secure calls yesterday morning to senior Whitehall figures, was the latest dramatic behind-the-scenes move to get to grips with a crisis that is now engulfing the government.
After a day of shadow-boxing with a notoriously slippery regime, Tony Blair is set to up the ante: the plight of the Shatt al-Arab 15 is officially a crisis and he will need the Cobra team to handle it.
The clutch of VIPs will gather in an operations room several floors below Downing Street as early as this afternoon to plot an escape from a military spat that now threatens to become an international incident.
The decision came just 24 hours after the crew of HMS Cornwall had been caught in the confusion of direct confrontation with Iranian vessels in the searing heat of the Gulf.
As the crew members were surrounded in their two rubber dinghies, the Cornwall's commander, Commodore Nick Lambert, frantically radioed back to his own top brass for instructions.
The response to the inquiry, which had been immediately patched through to Ministry of Defence headquarters in Whitehall, was to hold fire.
The order to show restraint has been observed throughout the forces and the British government in the 48 hours since, but it is unclear how long both sides will be able to maintain control.
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett's first response to the gathering crisis on Friday was to keep to diplomatic conventions. After a hurried phone call to Blair, she immediately summoned Iran's ambassador, Rasoul Movahedian, to her office to explain their behaviour.
After a meeting described by officials as "brisk but polite", Beckett emerged to stress that she was "extremely disturbed" by events.
It was an understated description of the deep concern now gripping the government. Not only was Blair's administration alarmed at the risk to the 15 military personnel, which included at least one woman, but it was in no doubt over Tehran's ability to use their plight to make a wider point.
During a flurry of diplomatic activity in the hours after the snatch, the Iranians' rhetoric repeatedly elevated their action, and the alleged motives of the British, to a multinational affair. It was the eve of a second UN Security Council resolution imposing sanctions over Iran's refusal to halt its programme to enrich uranium. The Shatt al-Arab 15 were, from the start, pawns in a perilous international game.
"It looks like too much of a coincidence," a senior Foreign Office insider confirmed.
The response was a no- nonsense demand for Iran to relent - and Britain freely used the international community to back up its case. Beckett dispatched the UK chargé d'affaires, Kate Smith, to confront the government in Tehran, armed with the insistence that the British sailors had been in Iraqi waters.
In the meantime, Blair made a personal call to European allies, including EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, to secure a public denunciation of the Iranians' actions.
"It was impressed on everyone how important it was to raise the diplomatic temperature, rather than keep a low profile and let them make a song and dance of the situation," one defence official said.
"There is nothing to be gained in provoking a confrontation, because that would be playing into their hands. But neither should we let them have it all their way. We tried that before and we're still trying to get our kit back."
The smaller-scale precedent, the taking of six British marines and two sailors on the same waterway in June 2004, was a painful lesson. The personnel were only returned after they had been paraded blindfold on Iranian television and admitted entering Iranian waters illegally. Three years on, the government is still pressing Iran for the return of its boats and kit, including valuable radar equipment.
The degree of concern felt across Whitehall was demonstrated yesterday, when Movahedian was called back to the Foreign Office, this time to see Beckett's minister, Lord Triesman. The British were clearly attempting to warn off Tehran before it could begin to use the servicemen and women as a significant propaganda tool.
It was, however, a race against time - and through it all, the diplomats and the politicians were acutely aware that Tehran has built a foreign policy on disregarding diplomatic niceties.
Top level COBRA is an acronym for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, where its meetings are held.
Tony Blair, senior ministers, police and security chiefs all take part. It is called after events such as 9/11, 7/7
and can evoke emergency powers such as suspending Parliament or restricting movement.
I can't tell you how many people have told me this war is different because we're facing an enemy that doesn't care whether they live or die. Then I naturally ask, "What about the kamikazes?". Again blank stares.
I wonder how long it will take the American Liberals to claim it was all Bush's fault.
The world should impose the strongest sanctions proposed to date and make them stick. Russia should be told they will be removed from most favored nations trade status if they balk and China the same.
It's hard to let go of the past. Many still identify the British with their forebears who fought at Waterloo, the Somme, etc. However, the fact is that a vast majority of today's inhabitants in the UK, France and Germany are, by definition, descendants of those who survived WWI ie cowards & weaklings.
IOW, they owe their positions simply because their potential competition was never born. An entire generational warrior class, numbering in the millions, were erased from gene pool, never to return. I call them BINO, FINO & GINOs, respectively. They speak the same language, look somewhat the same, and even claim the region's history, but it is not them.
Today's situation can be traced back to 1914, not just 1979, et al.
You are seriously deluded. The so called snatch of Iranian diplomats is because the Iranians have been meddling in and provoking the war in Iraq and funding both the insurgents and the radical shia's (no capital not by accident). They are all clones of a guttural religion.
here is your problem.
when you said "what about the kamikazes" they thought you were talking about the drink.
The Brits are doing nothing. They need USA approval before any action is put in place. Lets remember the Falkland isle war.
Heck they're probably already trying to blame the pet food poisonings on him.
"The official notification, delivered in secure calls yesterday... "
PERHAPS NOT SO SECURE....
I can.
We should all just finally face up to the fact that we have a lot different brand of leadership now than we had with the likes of Churchill and Eisenhower.
Gee, I wonder what team they will have to assemble when Iran has nukes.
Really?
Remember the Pueblo?
Remember the recon plane forced down in China?
Top level COBRA is an acronym for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, where its meetings are held.
LOL
COBRA my a$$.. hognosed , rolls over and plays dead.
Big mistake.
The response to the inquiry, which had been immediately patched through to Ministry of Defence headquarters in Whitehall, was to hold fire.
Second mistake.
Where's Horatio Hornblower when you need him?
Jimmuh - thinking
Are you sure those two words belong in the same sentence?
"I'm sorry, but the timne to confront them was when the whole thing started. HMS Cornwall could have, should have stopped it then!"
Spot on, as they say! The Commander of the Cornwall, had the power to respond, and he is most assuredley kicking himself for making the phone call instead of keeping his eye on the ball. There is a time for action, and you can't get it back. He could have called about 30 min later and said " Sorry sir, I had to act to protect our troops, and those Iranies won't be bothering us again." Even if fired, he would have held high respect in his retirement.
Understatement is good. Underaction, less so.
We could clone him. And probably should.
___
We don't have a "Ronnie" around today to lead us........
mutley wrote:
I wonder if Jimmuh ever lets this notion slip into his thinking about the current world situation?"
Didn't you notice in his latest self-serving book, most of the Carter Center Staff resigned in protest over his outrageous statements? Even his closest advisors can't penetrate his pea brain!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.