Press-Register – AMERICANS SHOULD be deeply troubled by the spectacle of the once-mighty British lion slinking away from a confrontation with the jackals of the outlaw regime in Iran.
Iran committed an act of war by seizing 15 British sailors and marines in Iraqi waters and holding them hostage for almost two weeks. In response to this outrage, the British government dithered while the Iranians humiliated the hostages by videotaping their "confessions."
The crisis ended Wednesday with the docile captives shaking hands with Iran’s firebrand president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and thanking him for releasing them despite their alleged intrusion in Iranian waters.
This dismal scene reinforced the perverse lesson Iran’s radical Islamic government long ago learned: Hostage-taking is an effective weapon for neutralizing the power of Western nations.
In 1979, the administration of then-President Jimmy Carter was practically paralyzed by Iran’s seizure of U.S. diplomats in Tehran. Terrorist groups supported by Iran later kidnapped Americans in Lebanon, leading to the Reagan administration’s attempt to trade arms for hostages.
It’s not surprising that the Iranians are still using kidnapping as an instrument of foreign policy: They never paid a price for victimizing American citizens and embarrassing two U.S. presidents.
Some British observers saw a different historical parallel in British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s failure to respond forcefully to Iranian aggression.
Geoffrey Wheatcroft, writing for the online magazine Slate, referred to Winston Churchill’s remarks in 1938 after the British government surrendered to Adolf Hitler’s demands in the Munich conference. Britain’s great wartime leader warned then that "this is only … the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor we arise again and take our stand for freedom."
Britain may already be getting a taste of the "bitter cup" of appeasement. Prime Minister Blair suggested Thursday that an Iranian-designed roadside bomb was used to kill four British soldiers in southern Iraq. American military officials say the Iranians are supplying these explosives to terrorists fighting U.S. troops in Iraq.
Radical Islamists are convinced that the United States and its allies lack the stomach for a fight to the finish. The meek response of the British to an act of piracy — the British sailors made no effort to defend themselves, and Prime Minister Blair never hinted at retaliation — surely will strengthen their conviction that they can drive the British and the Americans out of the Middle East and carry jihad around the globe.
Mr. Blair has been our strongest ally in the fight against the jihadists in Iraq. But his stand against the terrorists has cost him popular support at home, and his government may not have the political strength to confront more military challenges.
The British people seem to have forgotten the lesson of Munich: Weakness invites aggression. A fear is that the aggressors in Tehran and elsewhere in the Middle East will soon give them a brutal reminder.
