Iran is wrong. - Democratic Underground

cali

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Thu Mar-29-07 08:46 PM
Original message

Iran is wrong.

Edited on Thu Mar-29-07 08:51 PM by cali

In my opinion, Iran's act of seizing 15 British sailors was rash and agressive at a time when we could use less, not more of that. I keep seeing all these comments defending what Iran did, and it drives me a little nuts, because it seems like it's a defense, not based in reason, but in a kneejerk response to GB being an ally of the U.S. and Blair's alliance with bushco on the "war on terra". OK, that antagonism is understandable. I feel it myself, but let's take a look at what we actually know about the situation.

The Brits were operating under a U.N. mandate. The captured sailors were in two small dinghies, hardly the vessels one would choose for provocation, let alone agression.

The Iranians claim that the Brits were in Iranian territorial water. The Brits claim they were in Iraqi waters. The border in the Shatt al- Arab has been long disputed. In any case, it is simply ludicrous to assume that the Brits were trying to start a shooting war.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard could simply have told the sailors to get the fuck out of Iranian waters. Hell, they could have done it at the point of a gun. Or they could have held them for a few hours while broadcasting to the world that the Brits had breached their territorial integrity.

The Brits on the Frigate Cornwall, could have shot at the Iranians. In an interview, an American officer posted in waters near Iran said that's what the Americans would (stupidly) have done. The British took no hostile action.

The Brits tried, for several days,using quiet diplomacy, calling in the Iranian Ambassador for meetings and using very low key and conciliatory language- even calling the meetings with diplomats "cordial", to secure the release of the sailors. In the last couple of days the Brits have been using stronger language, but nothing that can by any stretch of the imagination signal an impending attack or any desire for hostilities to break out.

When I see comments about how the Iranians are peacefully detaining the bad brits who were looking for trouble, my jaw drops. Yes, yes, Bush is a war monger, but the Brits, despite Tony Blair's alliance with bush, are not the Americans. And frankly, I suspect that Tony Blair, who is not a stupid man, knows all too well that he made a blunder of epic proportions when he when he allied himself with bushco. England in not the U.S.

So go ahead, flame away with all the usual PNAC, war criminal stuff- and I'm not disagreeing about PNAC or the culpability of Blair in the Iraq war, but you might try and look at the situation critically instead of through that particular prism.

Oh, and one more thing, I don't think there's a chance of a war over this incident.

And yet another thing for those of you that think Iran is simply doing what they have every right to do and just peacefully detaining the sailors: The 8 British sailors who Iraq captured in 2004, claimed that the Iranians put them through mock executions.

The U.S. has hardly captured the market in bad acts. Neither has England.

The Iranians should release the British sailors.