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Osama collects his winnings On the one hand, she could be deliberately downplaying expectations:
Hopes for the imminent release of 15 sailors and Royal Marines held in Iran were dampened yesterday when Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, urged “caution” over the chances of a swift end to the crisis.
But, and on the other hand, I am reluctant to give this woman credit for any degree of calculation that is not immediately connected to the furtherance of her own career. Let’s just say that nobody seems to have any idea as to how long our hijacked naval personnel will have to continue celebrating Iranian culture. That leaves us only with speculation.
So, who thinks that the RN personnel will be released:
A. Before the end of this month?
B. Before the end of this year?
C. Within 2 years?
D. Within 5 years?
E. Within 10 years?
F. Within 20 years?
G. Never?
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I fear it will be H) shortly after Iran announces it has nuclear weapons, thus increasing the number of hostages from 15 to “all people everywhere.”
Heh, when we’re all held captive by crazy islamist thugs then noone will be.
With my optimistic face on – Before the end of the year, possibly sooner.
Does the UK have the means to carry off a rescue? Last winter, your government announced the end of training paratroopers for a few years, for budget reasons.
It’s okay. After the 1979 embassy takeover, our then-President tried to stage a rescue using the First SFOD-D (commonly called “Delta Force”) and a cobbled-together bunch of aircraft and aircrews, with disastrous results. After that, the Army and Air Force established special operations air wings purpose-built for exactly this sort of thing.
I don’t see anything wrong with loaning Delta and the 160th SOAR to the UK if that would help.
Will they want to leave? In Iran, women can smoke, and Iran is a country getting things done- the men may choose to stay with a winning nation!
Maybe F. The EU is against applying economic sanctions against Iran, the UN is clearly disinterested and the UK lacks the teeth to do more than just talk. There is no incentive for the Mad Dinner Jacket to release the hostages, in fact he gains kudos in many parts of the world the longer he holds them.
Fifteen sailors will NOT choose to stay in a place with neither beer nor scantily-clad women. The very notion could knock the Earth off its axis!
I will go for “B”. The coronation of Gordon Brown will be marked by his brilliant negotiation of the release of the hostages, thus immediately making him the best Prime Minister we’ve ever had.
It will only be after the publication of the relevent documents in 100 years, when he and we are long dead, that anyone will see what sort of grubby deal he did to secure their release (although a few abstentions in key UN votes will give clues before then).
It depends, basically. I am not convinced that they were captured by ‘Iran’ as opposed to ‘a faction operating within Iran that has the support of some members of the government but not others.’
The Iranian president himself hasn’t commented much on the issue apart from to rant the usual threats – I think myself that he prefers brinkmanship than action such as this and that some of his ‘supporters’ may have gone further than he’d have desired. It’s being said that ‘the Iranians want to negotiate, but when we get there, they don’t actually know what they want.’
I think that common sense will prevail very shortly and we will probably guarantee not to trespass Iranian waters (which we already guarantee, so there’s no loss of face there) and they’ll get handed back.
I would prefer that we were more direct, but I don’t see that we have many options – we aren’t able to go to war properly (on the ground) with Iran at the moment, even with the US’s help – we could bomb it/nuke it into submission, but the resulting oil price spike would harm us more than them, and the tactic of mixing critical command bunkers with telegenic slums full of poor children is surprisingly effective when it comes to stopping B52 strikes.
(Sensible) options, I think, are limited.
If Blair has any backbone left (or influence inside his own government), shortly after the May council elections.
If Blair doesn’t have any backbone left, or Brown is now running things (as well as running scared of election results in Scotland), then slightly before the May council elections, leaving Brown time to announce the RN’s carrier order and subsequent Scottish jobs boost.
I tend to agree with MarkE here. The Broon (or Milibland) will allow the Iranians to present the release as a magnamous gesture dressed up with fine sentiments about how Anglo-Iranian relations can improve with the new administration.
This will only happen if Dubya hasn’t whacked them by then. If that happens they will never be seen again.
I go with C. The mullahs will release your Marines immediately after President Hillary Clinton is sworn in. They have a history of releasing hostages as a sort of inauguration present.
I don’t believe the UK will do anything at all either diplomatically or otherwise. I believe Terhan will decide a time of their own choosing to determine that the situation has been exploited adequately, squeezed for all the propaganda value its worth and then the hostages will be let go without any prior announcement.
The Labour Government will declare a victory of sorts and Iran’s status in the middle east (and perhaps further afield) will go sky high. Soon after an embolded Iran will try to close the Straits of Hormuz. The price of oil will almost double, Iran will get the cash they badly need and then they will stop the blockade whilst the EU & the US are still debating what action to take.
At that point the EU & the US will have no real foreign policy or game plan with regards to Iran so they might as well give up pretending that they do.
Many have been saying for at least a decade now that it’s long past the time for a strategic disengagement from OPEC oil. Now it would seem that it’s Iran’s turn to bang the drum.
I dont know when they’ll be released but
i´ll bet that at least one of them will convert to Islam.
lucklady,
And then speak at “Don’t invade Iran” gigs? Or as it’s called in the biz do a “Yvonne Ridley”. Oh the mullahs would love that!
Yup, I’ve been pondering that and I bet they’ve been 24/7ing the da’wa at LS Faye Turney.
I mentioned it to my wife and she responded in a way that surprised me. She said that “blood would hit the ceiling if that happened”. I mean Yvonne Ridley’s conversion seemed lasting and genuine and to a certain extent you can’t really argue with it but… I dunno… Are even the better angels of our spirits just getting thoroughly pig-sick of Islam? Is it almost the case that converting to Islam is now seen by average folk as being almost treasonous?
Today(Link)? I wonder what price we paid for this ‘gift’.
Mandrill,
Yes. It looks suspiciously like a complete capitualtion from Iran. So… we either bribed ’em or the internal Iranian power struggle decided to quit the game or… they’re playing an even cuter game. How can the UK repay such a magnanamous gesture with backing up a US/Israeli strike against Iranian nuke facilities? Surely we can’t after this act of Islamic kindness.
Note: I do not even mention option 4 – we scared the pants off them.
I told you it was going to be soon.
Seems it was part of a clandestine game where the US snatched some Iranian operators, and Iran signalled (successfully) that it will have none of it, exposing the very real weakness of Britain and the US.
With all of the press coverage being given to the unexpectedly advanced state of Iran’s uranium enrichment program, for example here, here, and here, I think a lot of us, at least over here, are itching for an opportunity to bomb Iran’s research back into the stone age before they can send us back to it.
It’s quite possible the answer is option 4.
Of course, this may now mean we don’t and President Armageddonjihad can now finish his project undisturbed.
I suspect they’d probably have been released already were the Iranian Revolutionary Guard actually under the direct control of the Iranian government, and our government not grandstanding a teensy bit, too. Otherwise it’s a perfectly ordinary diplomatic incident of the mildest kind.
Otherwise it’s a perfectly ordinary diplomatic incident of the mildest kind.
Totally wrong !
It’s a humiliation the Iranians intentionally, and successfully inflicted on the US and Britain. It’s a signal they sent: “Don’t mess with us”. The signal was sent and received.
And the right answer is (wait for it) A. And what about those suits they were wearing. Makes M&S look seriously bespoke.
Otherwise it’s a perfectly ordinary diplomatic incident of the mildest kind.
If the Iranians had handled it like a civilized nation, this would be true.
Instead, they committed multiple violations of the Geneva Conventions and made it as big an international foofaraw as they could.