There was something Stockholm Syndrome [1]-ish about the amount of happness with which the press and some of the public, received the 15 British Marines home a few hours ago. The Brits have always been somewhat fatalistic from my perspective, but never moreso than today, it occurrs to me.
And it wasn’t just the reaction in the UK. All over the west, the news agencies sprung into wall-to-wall mode, as the plane was on approach at Heathrow. The phrase “Please Sir, may I have another?” kept popping into mind, unbidden.
For the sake of the 15 individuals, I’m pleased they’re home. But I won’t deny that I’m uneasy about the amount of denial going on about the defeat we suffered, which brought these events to pass. With what we know at the moment about these events, I don’t know how it could be labeled as being anything else. Which ought to make the Desperate- for- defeat- Democrats here in the ‘States happy.
The Telegraph [2] seems to agree, saying in part:
Yet the satisfaction of a diplomatic challenge eventually handled with skill is soured by the string of psychological humiliations that Britain has suffered.
First, there is the apparent incompetence of the Royal Navy in providing insufficient protection to lightly armed inflatables, at a time when relations between Iran and the West were particularly volatile following the imposition of UN sanctions. Second, the seized personnel lost no time in admitting to having trespassed and in apologising for their mistake. The old military practice of giving name, rank and number, and no more, has obviously been abandoned.
Third, the dénouement of this crisis showed Mr Ahmadinejad in the most favourable of lights, whether in “pardoning” the 15, pleading on their behalf with Mr Blair, admonishing this country for separating a mother, Leading Seaman Faye Turney, from her child, or shaking hands and chatting with the newly besuited Servicemen after his press conference.
The Iranian president has rightly been demonised in the West for his call for Israel’s destruction and his pursuit of a nuclear weapons programme in defiance of the UN. Yet yesterday he was able to adopt the moral high ground, admonishing the Government while treating graciously those who had been acting on its behalf at the head of the Gulf.
The annoying part is we in the west seem quite willing to LET Iran pull this again. Apparently Carter’s folly taught us nothing, after all.