Kidnapping as a foreign policy

So who’s surprised that the government who’s political leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hostage-taker and kidnapper nearly thirty years ago, is using that same crime today as a bargaining tool? 15 British sailors and marines have become a bargaining chip in Iran’s criminal behavior towards the rest of the world. The rest of the world that has tolerated and turned a blind eye to Iran’s sociopathic antics on the world’s stage for decades.

The Washington Times reports that Iran will try the 15;

The Iranian government will charge 15 captured British service members with “illegal entrance into Iranian waters,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said yesterday, raising the stakes in his country’s confrontation with an outraged British government.
    Mr. Mottaki told reporters in New York that the matter had already been referred to the Iranian legal system and that the 14 men and one woman, who were captured in the Persian Gulf on Friday, would stand trial.
    “Iranian authorities intercepted these sailors and marines in Iranian waters,” said the minister, who was in New York for an unrelated vote Saturday in which the U.N. Security Council imposed new sanctions against his government.
    British Prime Minister Tony Blair said “there is no doubt at all” that the seizure took place in Iraqi waters.

The time has come to deal with Iran in the way that they’ve been begging to be treated all these years. They’ve participated in and paid for kidnapping across the globe to get their way, to fund weapons sales and to fill their coffers - their rogue behavior needs to have a steep price for the Iranians beginning today. In fact, a nice little bombing run on their nuclear facilities will give excellent coverage to a rescue raid (we all know that the Brits know where the sailors and marines are being held – the goat herders aren’t that good at disguising their activities). 

The DC Examiner reports that China and Russia are putting pressure on Iran to comply with UN demands to stop uranium enrichment. I guess the other two sociopaths see where they can hurt by the fallout of a nuclear-armed Iran in a sanction-conflict with the rest of the civilized world. But Iran continues to suspend it’s pledges, according to the Washington Post/AP.;

In New York, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, “A few select countries don’t have the right to abuse the Security Council.”

“The Security Council has to be aware of its own position and status,” he added. “Actions that are illegal, unwarranted and unjustified will reduce the credibility of the Security Council.”

Mottaki said Iran has repeatedly sought negotiations with the powers that drafted the resolution against the Islamic republic: the five permanent council members — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — and Germany. But he accused those countries of lacking the political will to reach a breakthrough.

Doesn’t even sound like a sane person who has been watching the news lately, does it? In another article, the Washington Post reports that Iran is feeling the financial squeeze from sanctions;

More than 40 major international banks and financial institutions have either cut off or cut back business with the Iranian government or private sector as a result of a quiet campaign launched by the Treasury and State departments last September, according to Treasury and State officials.

The financial squeeze has seriously crimped Tehran’s ability to finance petroleum industry projects and to pay for imports. It has also limited Iran’s use of the international financial system to help fund allies and extremist militias in the Middle East, say U.S. officials and economists who track Iran.

So feeling the walls closing in, the Islamic Republic resorts to the only thing it understands; extortion using the lives of westerners as chits. There’s only one reasonable response to this barbaric behavior. The harsher the better. But, it’ll never happen – the Left and their usual hand-wringing and pleas for civility will stop it. And when the British sailors and Marines are beheaded on YouTube, somehow it’ll be George Bush’s and Tony Blair’s fault. The Left loves to make excuses for bloody tyrants.

Category: Foreign Policy, Terror War