Iranian brinkmanship and British appeasement
Check out this article about the current hostage crisis between Britain and Iran. If you haven't been following it, what basically happened is that 15 British sailors and marines were taken captive by Iran for allegedly trespassing into Iran's territorial waters while on a routine patrol. Britain maintains that the patrol was well inside Iraqi waters. Iran claims that GPS coordinates found on the boat showed several incursions into Iranian waters; however, the initial set of coordinates they sent to Britian actually showed the British troops in Iraqi waters, after which Iran "corrected" them and sent the "true" coordinates. Iran has forced the marines to make statements apologizing for their "mistake" and demanding that Bush and Blair withdraw from Iraq. The EU, US, and Britain have all condemned Iran's actions.
What really shocked me about this article is that 48% of Britons don't believe that the use of force would be justified to resolve this situation, even "as a last resort" (compare with 44% who do). How, then, do they expect to rescue these 15 marines should all possible diplomatic means fail? When did Britain become a nation of pussies?
What really shocked me about this article is that 48% of Britons don't believe that the use of force would be justified to resolve this situation, even "as a last resort" (compare with 44% who do). How, then, do they expect to rescue these 15 marines should all possible diplomatic means fail? When did Britain become a nation of pussies?