British Prisoners In Iran

Wow, I guess I'm the first to comment on the elephant in the room.

Here is the basic story linked off of the AP website for anyone who hasn't heard yet.

Since this post is taking the place of a "news report" I will hold off on any editorialization for now (certain unnamed others should take note).

Gulf of Tonkin anybody?

No, that scenario tracks. If Britain declares war, we automatically go with them and don't have to take the blame for starting it. Precisely where the British boat was is irrelevant as the entire Shatt al-Arab is disputed territory. They should've known better, imho.

Actually it would drag all of Nato into the war as an attack on one member is considered an attack on all members. I think this will turn out to have been a miscalculation on a small part of the Iranian revolutionary guards and will end up being resolved peacefully.

Oooooohhhh, that's so cute. You still think NATO is a viable political entity...

If Iran is smart it will be resolved peacefully, but in all honesty the US & Britain have been positioning their pieces for a while. All they've been waiting for is an excuse to start firing.

And Bald Eagle- the Pueblo was substantially different in that it was Korea. In 1968. We'd just started to get the bottle corked and had no desire to take on the DPRK (and their MILLIONS of PRC buddies) again. If you know anything at all about Korea you know that only a breath stands between it and outright war. Hundreds of fatalities have occurred in the DMZ and we always let it slide because we don't want another piece of that. Ask anybody who was at the Chosun Reservoir. And yeah, cautious optimism is the only thing that gets me through the day, man! lol

We might be able to get off simply letting the british use our positions in Iraq to attack from. But then again, does Britain's army really have any ability to project power at the current time?

Says the guy in the kaffiyah mask & sunglasses! LOL

I'm sorry, man. I had to. No offense intended...

yea dude

I wasn't making a flippant remark about british capabilities, I was asking a question. And when did I proclaim to be some sort of homemade bomb maker? Just because I pointed out diesel and fertilizer as an excellent example of improvised explosives doesn't mean I am some sort of expert on explosives.

I'm pretty much thinking/hoping for the same thing, although I'd like to understand a bit better why the British haven't come out with the proof that they were not in Iranian waters. The whole

"We have been clearly stating that we are utterly certain that the personnel were in Iraqi waters.

"We so far have not made explicit why we know that, because we don't want to escalate this."

is a bit confusing to me.

Do they just not want to escalate it by providing proof, or is there some hidden reason they really don't want to say how they are so certain about where they were? Why would providing proof escalate it?

The problem seems to be that the Shatt al-Arab - the waterway in which the incident occurred - is disputed territory: both Iran and Iraq claim most of it.

A 1937 treaty granted rights to most of the waterway to Iraq, but Iran has never really accepted those terms. The fact that the treaty was negotiated under British pressure probably doesn't help.

Yeah, this isn't an extraordinary situation. What's frightening is that it's being played-up as such by the guys that brought us the erroneous intel on Iraq, and The War.

edit: ... except for the fact that it's the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and not the Iranian Army.

I don't know, but it's a good question. I'm guessing Blair is trying to avoid doing anything to avoid dragging America in without American permission. Escalation might depend on the nature of the proof, though; let's say the only proof available showed a British vehicle which was on the wrong side of the line?

^ ^ I don't know, Blair's been the one ladling the rhetoric on the most. And they HAVE American permission, basically. Why else would we have moved a new carrier group in place?

And WildSwan is right on, but remember the Tonkin Gulf incident was a minor skirmish (if it even happened at all). Like you said- these guys are good at inflating threats. Hopefully the American public has wised up a little, but I'm not holding my breath.

Unless Rumors of Iran attacking the US Navy, which happens to be conducting exercises near the waters in question, surface.

Except were denying it even happened.

Sure, that's why they're "rumors". Still, things continue to escalate. Doesn't seem like a good thing

The ship commander's name in the first story is Charlie Brown.

o.o

does that seem just a little odd to anybody else?

Quick, someone sell weapons to them!

I'm with oyaji on this; a tempest in a teapot. This element is easily resolved.

I was convinced that the Neocon agenda had been crushed by the recent elections. A clear signal that Americans were not interested in the belligerent agenda put forward by a few. I am now concerned that the stinkers simply went underground and may in fact be preparing us for another fucking fiasco.

Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran's borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.
News from Russia

If this is true, WTF?

^ ^ Good link, thanks for sharing. And you're right. They haven't been deterred at all. That recent "victory" of ours on Capitol Hill was more likely than not just a bone they tossed us to keep us content as they continue on as usual...

OK, I thought about this some more, and I think I missed the important reason: Blair was hoping that this was going to be blamed on an overzealous local commander. (It appears, from the BBC radio report I heard earlier, that Ahmadinejad is being kept quiet by the religious leadership, possibly to avoid him shoving his foot entirely down his throat.)

But the permission thing still applies. Nobody here believes that Blair and Bush are in any way equal partners, and any British action would need more than tacit American support.

This is their proof.

Notice that the original location, as claimed by Iran, was in fact in Iraqi waters. When this was pointed out to them, they corrected the location so that it was in Iranian waters. Which is very convenient for them.

So, the UK say that they were within Iraqi waters, Iran (originally) says that they were within Iraqi waters, changed their story when they realized that they had fucked themselves, and are now refusing to release the female sailor, and have denied the promised consular access to the sailors because of the 'incorrect attitude' taken regarding the situation.

Interesting. What exact attitude should be taken? "Don't worry about seizing our sailors, you either are showing us your balls or just don't know how to read a map!'

'Incorrect attitude'? I don't quite understand that. From what I've seen, the British government have been almost excessively polite, given the circumstances. I say, old boy, may we have our sailors back? This is jolly inconvenient, you know.