1979 Revisited

On November 4th, 1979, the American embassy in Tehran was seized by Iranian "students." Out of the roughly 90 embassy workers, 52 of them were held by Iran for 444 days.

One of those "students" was named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "Several former hostages and the former President of Iran have identified Ahmadinejad as one of the key individuals holding Americans inside the embassy."

Keeping well to form, Iran is holding 15 UK sailors and soldiers hostage, insisting they were trespassing in Iranian waters (see map above). UK's Tony Blair said, after his military personnel were paraded about on Iranian state TV, that it was time for the UK to "ratchet up" pressure on Iran.

After first indicating the female sailor was to be released Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki recanted and said that Britain must now admit that its 15 sailors and marines entered Iranian waters -- in order to resolve a standoff over their capture by Iranian authorities.

Meanwhile, UK authorities continue to issue harsh language (to include phrases such as "very concerned" and "completely unacceptable") and have already gotten to the point where they are actually considering the utilization of serious sarcasm or belittling in order to resolve the issue.

This does nothing but prove to Islamists that any and all Western countries are Paper Tigers, and guarantees that this kind of action, and much worse, will continue unabated.

Note to Britain: pull out, say, one or two Invincible class aircraft carriers and float them over to the Arabian Sea. Zip out a flock of Harrier GR7s, perhaps augmented by a Spirit or three, and drop some precision ordnance onto a number of very important Iranian oil pipelines. Destroy their petroleum infrastructure. Take out several refineries for good measure. Target oil facilities at Iranian ports. I suggest that this may actually acquire Iran's attention.

Or, you can violate both common-sense diplomatic tenets. . .

1. Respond to words with words;

2. Respond to actions with actions.

. . . and do nothing.

Clue to Britain (just in case they're still considering belittling as a viable option): we're talking about actions here, folks.

Addendum Update: the US Freighter Mayaguez

I just remembered: does anyone recall the Mayaguez being taken by Khmer Rouge Cambodian gunboats on May 12th, 1975? This ship, in the Gulf of Thailand, had its 40 sailors physically captured and taken to a nearby island? President Ford gave the Cambodian government 72 hours to return the sailors and ship. When this did not occur, he sent the USS Midway and USS Coral Sea into the area. On May 15th, 175 US Marines assaulted the island, and US aircraft bombed the Cambodian airfield at Ream and the port of Kampong Som. All the sailors were subsequently found in a boat earlier set adrift by the Cambodians.

Hey Blair: looking for any kind of precedent? Here it is.

BZ