Diplomacy in action

Robert Eve

Miliband and the Iranians - well suited to each other.

Nicholas J. Rogers

Miliband... I'd forgotten he even existed...

Occasional Ostrich

. . . they wanted to deal with this in a straightforward, consular way.
It was never a political matter . . .

Ah, but . . . Had just one of them been a British Serviceman pursuing a vacation hobby, don't you think the Iranians would have been out to gain maximum propaganda advantage from what would still have been simply an unfortunate mechanical breakdown? The only reason they bailed out of this one so quickly was because they could see only a down-side to it for them.

Publius

More like appeasement in action. Yet again.

TrevorsDen

As I understand it the 'consular officials' did not know where these people were held and did not meet them.

This is a small beer issue blown up by media.

Verity

"I welcome the fact they have dealt with it in this professional way."

Hectoring, fussy, ignorant NuLabourSpeak.

Governments don't act in a "professional way". They act as, well, governments. People in power. He should have said, he was pleased that diplomacy had worked.

God, these people are ignorant little wankers! What a creepy little thing he is! Let us hope the voters of his constituency act in "a professional way" and vote him out.

Tankus

Good job the navy wasn't there , otherwise we would have lost two and waited months.

Frank P

So nobody stayed up to watch O'Barmy's dog and pony show at West Point, then?

My brief critique: an empty barrel resounding with rhetoric before a captive audience, waving a white flag to the enemy and farting Sousa through the bung for the post-speech photo ops. How the enemies of the West must be laughing!

And your priority is a sailing yarn about two Ollys and three other Wallys losing their way in the Gulf?

Sirri iriots!

Why not go the whole hog and let's be really silly:

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!'

Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?'
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,

Ye Gods! You let Mountebank get a headline from that crap, as the POTUS sells the West down the Swanee?

Ivan D

Could we just stop being silly? And by we I mean the droning, attack monkeys who litter Spectator threads. The 5 were released, unharmed and in good order. No fuss, job done (by a perfectly competent FCO). Just as a thought experiment, tell me, had 5 stray Iranians boated up the Hudson river, would they be free by now?

Watt Tyler

Yes Ivan D, its just chatter isn't it? While real life changing things are happening beyond the blinkers.

Beer Moth

They did what? Strayed into Iranian waters, due to a power failure? It's a racing yacht; a state of the art sailing machine. These things are so frisky, they can get 2 knots out of a crab's fart. Power failure my arse.

Ivan D.

I take it from your Hudson River reference that you are in the US.
Here in the UK we have many more than 5 stray Iranians. All of them free as birds. You want some?

Herbert Thornton

The matter has been allowed to turn into a propaganda triumph for the Iranians.

A great many more useful idiots will now conclude that the Iranian government is so obviously civilised, sincere and full of goodwill that all the concerns about their nuclear weapons program are no more than general western paranoia.

Frank P

Ivan D

Let's try another thought experiment:

If a Muslim psychiatrist of the rank of Major in the US Army spouted anti-American pro-Islamic propaganda for months on end and tried to disaffect his military patients; contacted Al Q'eada terrorists abroad by email with the full knowledge of the Security Services aand his senior officers; would he be allowed to carry on until he shot 14 of his his own colleagues dead and wounded 30 odd others?

I's stay way from thought experiments if I were you. They lead to some strange conclusions.

Ivan D

If you don't mind, Frank, I'll stay away from you, as you already seem to have enough conclusions, unpleasant and otherwise, for one lifetime. I'm sure you think you're making some slaient point by dragging in the criminal, PC-led inefficency of the US army, and how it polices itself, but, really, what on eaerth has that got to with how the Iranians police their territoiral waters? Whereas, my point of comparison, what we, or the US would do, were 5 unauthorised Iranians in a boat to swan past, oh, Parliament one sunny afternoon, does seem at least to be tethered to some vague sense of, y'know, reality. Or, of course, you can just vent about MUSLIMS - it does make for an easier life.

Dhimmi Jack Tar

@Ivan D: These sailors weren't drifting up the River Shoor. They were barely inside territorial waters when detained - and at a most fortuitous time for Tehran. Would that the RN had such a close grip on Britain's maritime security.

That this did not become another farce like the Royal Naval hostages affair is down to the Iranian government who have controlled events throughout - and here we have our freshly-scrubbed soaraway foreign secretary almost hyperventilating with gratitude that they chose not to.

Who emerges from this looking stronger? It matters not a fig to Tehran whether the British punditocracy think that this was jolly well-handled by the FCO, and demonstrates a victory for democracy: liberal commentators are not the target audience. Plenty of peple in their various constituencies have seen Tehran - again! - dictate events to The Little Satan/The Mother of the Great Satan.

Yet the FCO think this was a 'success'. The MoD still cling to the belief - in public - that Basra was a 'success'. The PM still thinks his economic policy is a success. I'd dread to live through one of their disasters.

salieri

Just what is so professional about taking a week graciously to allow people to leave a place they plainly never wanted to visit in the first place? Why do we just take it for granted that there was no Iranian bobby on shore to tell them, "Bad luck, sunshine, you want to aim for that coastline over there", give their boat a start and wave them on their way?

But we know the answer to that don't we? Let's all be terribly grateful that the Iranian government is so 'professional'.

Millipede is shameless as well as spineless.