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.
But what if President Clinton is in charge?
If we just stop and think a minute or so about such a possiblity can one keep from vomiting up breakfast as well as last night's dinner?
Many (unfortunately) Americans are so freaking stupid that the possibility of this happening is the greatest threat that America has ever faced.
The confused gender "wife" of a serial rapist ex-governor of Arkansas travels up to New Yarkansas and gets elected senator in order to fulfill her perverted childhood fantasy. Just unbelievable!
In cases like this it is a mistake to try to rescue. Rescues are suicide missions. The correct approach is to hold the hostage taking country hostage. Start a 12 hour clock ticking... make it clear that Tehran will be a very unpleasant please when the twelve hours are up unless all of the hostages are out of Iran before the time expires. The message should be communicated privately to Iran's leaders.
how the mighty have fallen
No, time to lay a conventional weapon into downtown Qom. Show 'em you mean business.
Inasmuch as Denmark is also a Charter member nation, and it's sovereign territory was physically attcked last year over the "cartoon" thing, I guess you can only draw your own conclusion about Nato membership, even as I have done...
the infowarrior
In some areas (the sanctity of life, for one), he is stronger than Reagan. One of those areas is in the appointment of SC justices. They are even and both wrong, IMO on immigration.
Just for the historical record, conservatives were down on Reagan at this point in his second term, and far beyond that.
They woke up eventually to what some of us already knew.........that Reagan was great.
Some day, those of you who are missing the boat on President Bush will wake up too.
And I promise not to say "I told you so" when you do. :)
Wheres Jessie Jackson when you need him? LMAO!!
Take your moralizing and use it as a suppository. Letting these tinpot dictators get whatever they want because of drama queens like you is how we got WWII. We need to stop this now before it becomes WWIII.
I know this will sound like an "Internet tough guy" post, but I mean it. Had I been commanding HMS Cornwall, I would have opened up on the Iranians with the 4.5 inch gun up forward, and if the brass wanted to try and court martial me when I got home, I guess I'd just have to suck it up.
Listen to me, and listen to me good, because you will take this as more chest thumping, but you better believe that I'm talking about stopping violence, not increasing it.
When a man, say a guy who is President of Iran, stands up and says, "World, I'd just like you to know that there's a whole country I'd like to wipe out, every man woman and child, make 'em dead as a door nail," there's only one appropriate and moral response from the world community. They should kill him before the day is out.
That's right, they should kill him. Any of the times this guy said he wanted to eliminate Israel, there should have been so many planes from so many air forces stacked up over his house with bombs that we had to send air traffic controllers in to make sure they didn't collide. We could have let them immulsify his terrorist ass alphabetically. "Algeria, you're cleared to roll in hot on the target. Mind the Albanian MiG climbing out over the rubble pile. Good day sir."
We sat around and picked our nose back in the Thirties when some crazed nutbar got ahold of a country and said he wanted to kill every Jew. You may be aware of the little conflict that resulted. They called it WWII. It only cost tens of millions of people.
We need to deal with this guy or your kids will be in a war. Or maybe they will have peace...because maybe they'll be jiahdi Muslims--bowing to the twisted moon god Ahmadinejad worships--and liking it.
If someone isn't willing to agree with you bunch of yahoos they must be a Democrat, this forum used to have a more intellectual conversation about 5 years ago now all we have are abunch of chest thumping, bible thumping yahoos.
That's funny...I joined this forum almost seven years ago and I don't remember any threads where people agreed we should all take crap from anti-Semites and let whole countries get wiped out. Maybe I was out of town that day. By the way, thanks for the slap against Christians...trust me sweetheart, nobody needs to hear the voice of God to get this one.
If you all want war so bad sign up! Go on over!
I did my bit when I was young and slim. Now I'm old and pudgy. But other young, slim men are willing to fight this one so your kids don't have to. And unlike you, they realize that when a man wants to kill little children for his god, he has no purpose on this earth other than as a range target.
We're trying to save your children, Israel's children, even Iran's children. We might fight a short war against military targets, or even just kill one guy, and stop a nuclear holocaust that would kill millions. If you can't figure that one out, take your broken moral compass and wander off somewhere out of the way of humans who have brains.
Oh, and be sure to read my tagline. It was written for the likes of you.
Actually, I think the kind of idolization (not that I've seen from you) of Reagan that goes on from some around here diminishes his true greatness.
But the point of what they are doing in mythologizing Reagan is to belittle the great man who now leads us.............and they don't hide it very well.
In Reagan's second term, there were plenty of conservatives who bashed Reagan mercilessly, but I was not one of them. His true greatness was always visible to those with eyes to see it.
The same is true with President George W. Bush. He is an honorable, courageous man and a great leader and my fellow conservatives will recognize that some day.
The pseudo-cons probably won't, but their opinion isn't worth a hill of beans.....
HMS Cornwall could have, should have stopped it then!
Are they new ?
They look good.
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