Iranian seizure of 15 British sailors, marines prompts questions

THE FACTS: The world’s nations are already tense thinking about Iran’s possible ambitions to make a nuclear weapon. But now 15 British navy sailors and marines have been seized by Iran on March 23, allegedly for trespassing in Iranian waters – a claim Britain denies. In addition, a retired FBI agent in Iran on private business has not been heard from since March 8. Should these incidents lead to war with Iran?\nIran’s actions justify use of force\nIn these depressing times, one recalls James Thomson’s immortal lines: “Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves: Britons never shall be slaves.” No longer operative, it seems. \nWhat lessons of the missing former FBI agent and the captive British military contingent show is that Iran is in the clutches of an aggrandizing revolutionary regime. Their unpunished piracy against 15 British Royal Navy sailors and marines – who were carrying out a U.N. Security Council mandate on behalf of a budding constitutional state in Iraq – would not have stood in the Victorian era.\nAn expeditionary force would have been sent in under the banner – in the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt when an American was taken hostage in Morocco – that the captives alive or the captors dead. \nThe British servicemen must be delivered from this shame and oppression. The most effective means of achieving that goal is to seek deliverance for the people of Iran.\nBy Brian Stewart\nInvasion would show nations’ stupidity\nForgive me for not being well-versed in the art of diplomacy. But it appears that all the British and the Iranians have accomplished in this scuffle is finger-pointing and witless banter. It would be foolish at this time to allow such an incident, which undoubtedly incites nationalist sentiments and idealistic passions, to become our Archduke Ferdinand.\nIt’s easy for armchair generals and Web-based warriors to call for an invasion (which they will take no part in, and which will have no effect on them). But they need to calm their “liberate”-the-world-via-carpet-bombing hysteria and be practical. We’re already in the middle of a war-and-a-half (Iraq and Afghanistan, anyone?).\nWhich nation has the troops, resources and stupidity necessary to start another war in the middle of these others? And when I say middle, I mean both figuratively and geographically.\nBy Ayesha Awan