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.
The Argentinian military leaders also underestimated the 'British response'. Recapturing the Falklands was a logistical impossibility, yet the British pulled it off.
And I believe the punchline from Churchill went something like this. 'They have chosen dishonor over war, and now they shall have both.'
Thanks, I enjoyed that!
I don't recall making a 'strong post'? I've only highlighted the UK's record in not giving in to hostage takers. With regards to your second post:
When US personnel were captured by Iran a while back, the US did nothing different to us. They have also done nothing to stop Iran's disgraceful arming of insurgents. So why is the US there?
Actually if you ever read the book by the late COL Charlie Beckwith, the original creator of the US Army's SFOD-D (Special Forces Operational Detachment- DELTA), spent a year with the SAS operating in Vietnam. He went back and created what is popularly known today as Delta Force.
SAS Operator Andy McNabb has written two books on his experiences with the SAS, one was called Bravo Two Zero and I highly recommend it. The other was a pre-quel called Immediate Action, also an excellent read. Thereafter the SAS clamped down on McNabb and other asipiring authors.
The place has at least three US fast attack subs on station.
The commander who allows his troops to be seized without putting up a fight should be drummed out of the service. Would you want to serve under such a commander when he has to ask for permission to save you? Just what the he!! Rules of engagement are these fools operating under in this hostile region? Idiots
That is probably the most ill informed opinion I’ve seen on this site in years! Where would WWIII come from. Don’t you realize that we are already in WWIII! Just who do you think would be on Iran’s side? Who are Iran’s allies? The simple answer is that there is no one willing to go to fight this country over Iran. Please try to use a modicum of logic before you respond in an illogical emotional outburst.
Unfortunately the real dynamic of a "Low Intensity Conflict" is quite different. In comparison WWII while long and bloody was a snap. Battle lines clearly drawn. Enemy largely in one place at a time and wearing identifiable uniforms....yada yada yada. Today it's not quite so simple. Today the bad guys strike like the cowards they are and slip away like smoke. Much as I rail against the entire populations of countries like Syria and Iran, I find it a bit much of a stretch to advocate the atomization of every man woman and child who obviously has no link to terrorists and just happens to be living in a country with a terrorist nutjob for a President.
Even if the tangos managed to detonate a nuke (a la 24 w/Jack Bauer) on US soil, how many of you would walk next door and smoke your Arab neighbor in retaliation? Not me. It's not quite as easy as you might think.
Even in the act of kicking a$$, we're still going to lose some considerable numbers of American soldiers. Enough to make the losses in Iraq pale in comparison. The only way to win a war is to invade the country and seize the land itself. It has been thus since the dawn of time. All the high tech weapons in the world have made the job of the infantryman a little bit easier, but still necessary.
I have a pretty good feeling how Rudy would handle something like this if it happened to the US.
First he would fire the commander of the ship and second he would give them 6 hours to release the captives and then start the precision bombing of their economy. A couple of damns here and a few bunker busters there and the game would be over.
Just an FYI; there is talk about how bombing the uranium enrichment sites would cause wide spread release of radioactivity, well for all of you whimpy handwringers out there, we are working on blowing up the sites and containing the resultant contamination to those underground sites.
Quarantine the country, let them drink their oil.
One thing: if they're talking to you assume they are lying. It's in their book.
War warning?
Well, the iranians feel they got what they wanted when Hesbollah captured the israeli soldiers. A war that bombed lebanon backward 50 years so now the remaining sheep are properly conditioned against "the enemy". This is what they may want out of the UK/US now, to head off any revolutions.
This game of diplomacy has been going on for some decades with the middle-east. The kidnapping of military personnel is a clear and present danger as far as I'm concerned. However, as a commoner I don't think any move should be made by the US or the UK until those respective governments let their peoples know just what in the world is going on to delay or prevent an immediate rescue. Is it some sort of military maneuvering in the area, the oil, crazy maniacs running the place, planned terrorist attacks in the UK or US?
I don't want to start WWIII, but I am sick of all the secrecy, while in the meantime westerners are being kidnapped, killed, bartered with or whatever. Our governments seem to be using their people as cannon fodder, and I'm tired of it.
We have the military and weaponry to end these problems almost immediately, but we refrain from using them at any and all cost.
I think the Russia threat is overhyped. Russia is in it for whatever wealth they can squeeze out of their customers. Once things go to blows they'll back off, but continue to provide substandard military equipment.
In my opinion I think the time to show the World our true military and economic might should happen soon.
Please don't suggest that people DON'T have something at stake here just because their children aren't draftable!
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