Can Tony Blair Really Be This Dense?

Certainly, British PM Blair isn't stupid, but I'm left speechless at this recent comment of his regarding the current hostage issue: article and image of the latest letter from Faye Turney.

A Whitehall source said of Tehran: "They are looking for a way out."

Tony Blair however expressed "disgust" at the treatment of the captured British Royal Navy personnel by the Iranians.

Mr Blair said: "I really don't know why the Iranian regime keep doing this. All it does is enhance people's sense of disgust.

"Captured personnel being paraded and manipulated in this way doesn't fool anyone. What the Iranians have to realise is that if they continue in this way, they will face increasing isolation."

In the first place, Iran's "way out" looks as though it goes right through any remaining credibility as regards Britain's ability and resolve to truly confront an act of war, or despotic aggression, even when it's launched against it's own troops.

But Why do they keep doing it? What is it that anyone since Reagan, who only had to make pre-inauguration threats, has done to make them stop?

And why do world leaders like Blair continue to kid themselves that rogue regimes actually worry about what other people think of them, or that said regimes care about being isolated from a world they view as an enemy to be conquered.

As frustrated as I am with Bush, unfortunately it looks as if most of the major world powers are lacking in strong leadership right now and Iran is taking full advantage of the opening.

Comments

[Zifnab]

Where oh where is dear President Reagan?! Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?!

*yawn* Please, Dan. Reagan had a back-end deal with the mullahs to release the hostages only after the elections in order to embarass Carter. He sold them weapons while in office, for christ's sake. No American President has been a bigger supporter of the Iranian theocracy than President Reagan. Reagan bribed the mullahs with guns, then turned around and sold weapons to Iraq to forment regional war. We're living in the aftermath of the Republican guns-for-thugs programs of the 80s, and now you're whining about how Democrats, of all people, aren't being tough enough.

[Doc]

Right. And he had a back-end deal with the Russians and the East Germans to begin the dismantling of their totalitarian regimes on his watch to make him look good, too. And the US is secretly ruled by a triumvirate of Jooos.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, one wonders what would have happened if it had been the US Cornwall, not the HMS Cornwall. Hopefully the outcome would have been a little different...

I'm still waiting for the explanation as to why the Brits shouldn't just demand their release at tactical nuke-point.

[southdakotaboy]

Here is a thought, have Bush get on National TV and announce that if the Dems will get up there to and explain exactly what they think he did wrong and exactly (step by step detail no mushy language) how they plan to fix it he will order the millitary to follow that plan to the letter.
Then we conservative just sit back and do nothing to help. We just sit back and watch the blood bath begin. Then we announce that since that worked so well we are going to no longer get involved in any thing outside the US. Just pull our troops back to our borders. No more navy to protect the sea lanes. No more money for the UN, that alone should pay for most of the uninsured here in the US. The world got on fine without us before WWII let them handle things without us now.
If nothing else it will be fun to take bets on how long before the protest signs switch from complaining about our imperialism to our isolationism.

[Zifnab]

Because that would be stupid, Doc. We threaten to nuke Iran and they laugh at us - a nuke hasn't been used in combat since Nagasaki - and rightly so. Dropping a nuke anywhere in the Middle East will send OPEC into apoplectic fits. It's economic suicide. The first nuke to detonate in the Middle East will be the shot that sparks WWIII. I don't think 15 British hostages are worth that. Tony Blair doesn't think 15 British hostages are worth that. I don't think any sane human-being thinks the fight would be worth that. So it's a dummy move that no rational individual would actually employ. Threatening to use nukes on Iran shows far more weakness than simply threatening to send in a battalion of soldiers and seize an outlying city. At least that wouldn't throw the ENTIRE Middle East into war.

[Fred Beloit]

You have me quite curious, Zif. How many UK sailors and marines being taken for hostage would cause you to support a Brit attack against Iran, not a nuclear attack, but a conventional attack?

[bloodrage bob]

make yourself comfortable, fred. you're gonna be waiting a long time.

[Hard Right]

As I have said before, the only ones that will nuke Iran is Israel when they have no choice.

Like I said, take out Iran's oil fields and watch them fall apart without their cash cow. In this case Britain could threaten to do so unless the sailors are returned.

[southdakotaboy]

Ya Fred tring to reason with Zfnab is like trying to reason with a rock. On the other hand you might have more luck with a rock.

[jim]

Reagan was great at cowardly negotiations terrorists; he sold Iran all sorts of weapons systems behind the Congress' back. Remember Iran-Contra?

You know, that's where your hero Reagan violated the Constitution by secretly arming our sworn enemy, Iran, in order to get US hostages out of Lebanon, and more importantly to get money to fund the Contras and overthrow South American governments.

Let's remember history right.

[Zifnab]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Entebbe

1 or 100, it's all fine. Just make sure they do it right. Conventional responses in times of conflict are acceptable so long as they're done intelligently. If the goal is the free the hostages, there's no magic number, and I have no problem with Tony Blair if he wants to pull a Black Helicopter rescue mission. They're tough to pull off, and dangerous for everyone involved. But they're significantly less dangerous and more successful than simple carpetbombings.

[Fred Beloit]

Well, I didn't hear any commenters suggest carpet bombing, but it is heartening to see that you feel pulling a trigger might be OK in some circumstances.

[bloodrage bob]

blair (and the brits) timid, shy responses to the iranians latest Act Of War reminds me a lot of a little boy hollering cuss words at someone he's secretly afraid to fight.

cussing up a storm; acting tough & mean & brave....all the while casting hopeful glances at his big brother, the USA. sidling closer to big brother sam, hoping big sam'll beat the bad guy up for him.

that sound you hear? just the death rattle of what used to be british manhood: replaced by a tender, sensitive, caring, completely-useless-in-a-real-crisis pussyman. ah, well. mayhaps the UN will act forcefully; move quickly to strike the iranians and end this....uh....this 'crisis'.

look! hiding behind the table! it's a chicken! it's a cowardly little french girl! no! it's...it's *pussyman*!

[Zifnab]

"Well, I didn't hear any commenters suggest carpet bombing, but it is heartening to see that you feel pulling a trigger might be OK in some circumstances."

I'm all for pulling the trigger when its necessary. I've mentioned Kosavo, like, a million times. Even Iraq could - should - have been a success, WMDs or no. But the management was abysmal. And part of the problem was this "fast on the trigger, slow on the draw" mentality. You absolutely need to think before you shoot..., or bomb, or invade, or whatever.

[Doc]

Sending OPEC into fits would suit me fine. If we would get the gov't out of the way of energy development of all kinds, including ceasing to make it prohibitively expensive or downright impossible to locate, extract, refine, distribute, and sell oil in any lands not currently owned by Muslims, OPEC would be merely one more bit player in the game.

WW3? And who, exactly, would be shooting back? You think the Russkis are going to put theirs on the line for Iran? How 'bout the Chinese? Doubt it. Let the Brits do a demo shoot somewhere uninhabited, then give Iran 2 wks to evacuate some piece of dirt, then they either pony up the hostages, or the dirt glows. We're going to have to do something like that eventually anyway, to keep the Persians from getting da bomb. If we don't, the Israelis will, one hopes.

I don't really have any problems with the 'take out the refinery' scenario, either. But the more the Brits wait and waffle, the more likely this is to end in tragedy, and then happen again worse.

This also tends to prove the madness of deliberately putting women in harm's way, tho' I don't expect anyone who denies that men have a duty to protect women to acknowledge that.

[scarshapedstar]

Wow, is Doc claiming that Iran-Contra never occurred?

The wingnut meter is off the scale...

[Phoenix]

Bringing up the past for historical reference is fine if you're using it as a foundation for what did or didn't work. But watch the framework. History is a continuum, and spouting off past events as relevant to a current crisis is no solution. The world changes, and every EU country has an endogenous population of Muslims, many of whom are looking for any excuse to start trouble. EU leaders have to take this into consideration now when they didn't have to before. Blair is under the threat of what fanatic Muslims have already done in his country. That's why he has to be so careful - he has two fronts to consider. So he blows up a facility in Iran with casualities. Next day five-hundred Brits get blown up on the Tube. Is it worth it?

If anyone thinks massive immigration and open borders these days is a good thing is completely without foresight.
This proves just how badly handled immigration can render a country horrifically impotent.

[Zifnab]

The world changes, and every --EU country-- American State has an endogenous population of --Muslims-- Irish-Catholics, many of whom are looking for any excuse to start trouble. --EU-- American leaders have to take this into consideration now when they didn't have to before. --Blair-- Woodrow Wilson is under the threat of what fanatic --Muslims-- Catholics have already done in his country.

[Phoenix]

Zif,

You're a perfect example of losing your place on history's continuum. The current consideration is Muslims. Period.

Irish Catholics looking to cause trouble? Jaysus. Catholics have enough trouble hiding rampant pedophilia. Get real.

[Zifnab]

I'm just saying, we've heard this shtick of doomsday immigrants before. Then people abandoned neighborhoods and cried about the end of the nation at their arrival. Today we celebrate St. Patrick's Day and think red-heads are hot.

[templar knight]

Hmm..I keep trying to remember when the Irish Catholics called for the destruction of the United States and the West. I'm really thinking very hard, but I just can't come up with it. Mayhap YOU can fill me in, Blabby.

[Phoenix]

Zif,

Think progress. Progress has enabled the kind of terrorism we face today. Never, ever in the history of mankind has the threat of massive death at a single moment been more apparent than it is today. Yes to the nuking of Japan. But the threat today is so much more insididous and deadly. The doomsday stuff isn't that our enemy wants to live here. They just want us dead.

But, immigration is a huge facilitator of this scenario, and if the planet doesn't wise up about immigration, in the next hundred years the average IQ will be 70 and progress will be a thing to laugh at in history books and "Fahrenheit 451" will be a reality.

I don't like talk of doomsday, myself, but this enemy is not desirous of immigrating to America for a better life. They want our 'better' life to devolve to suit the mystical ramblings of some god. No thanks. I don't think it will happen, but for sure, it's time to halt immigration, or at least field it with a very jaded eye. What utter pussies we are. We're just a step behind Britain and the EU if we keep on the track we're on.

You cannot possibly believe, even in your more reflective moments, that we wanted this mess. It goes against all that is survivalist in human nature to give in to terrorism or to pretend the threat is not there. I doubt you could find one reasonable American who jumps up and down with glee at the thought of going to war.

One last thing for the stupid, relentless blame-game that goes on. I doubt even Clinton could have imagined 9-11. I bet you, like everyone alive on 9-11, can state exactly where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news. Welcome to the new world order. You really don't have the option of mockery, you know. One seldomly finds perfection in facing down an enemy our imaginations can hardly conceive of no matter how many YouTube beheadings or child bombers we see on the nightly news. Give Bush credit for taking them head on.