Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Still Wondering: Hugh Hewitt has a good roundup of links and speculation on Iranian motives and the fate of the captured British sailors. Are they trying to force a crisis? Hewitt recalls, as I did yesterday, the Falklands:
Bulletin to the mullahs: Blair ain't Carter. Nor is Bush. Remember the Falklands and keep in mind that a number of onlookers would love an excuse to reduce your nuke operations to smoldering ruins. Of course the reports on internal instability that flow out of Iran with regularity suggest that the powers-that-be (and which may-be-slipping) might need a summer drama to keep the streets full of their goons.
Perhaps the mullahs think a crisis will stir some bit of latent nationalism in the Iranian people, ending their love affair with the West. Not bloody likely.

This odd little situation is the story to watch.

More: Ralph Peters reads FauxPolitik:

It's a repertoire play, an attempt by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps — now a sprawling empire of repression — to recreate its greatest success on the world stage, the seizure of American embassy personnel a quarter-century ago . . .

By snatching the Brits from the waters of the Shatt-al-Arab, the Revolutionary Guards and their allies are trying to excite Iranian nationalism, to resurrect the passions of the past. It's a desperate measure behind a mask of bravado.

I was just guessing, Ralph. I'm still not sure why this isn't front-page, above-the-fold material.

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