Where is the outrage?

31 March 2007

The incident has revealed a country disconnected from its armed forces and deeply ambivalent about its global role. The lack of popular outrage here is quite incredible. According to eyewitness accounts, the Iranians crossed into Iraqi territorial waters and abducted at gunpoint British troops who were operating at the request of the United Nations and the Iraqi government. Then they moved their prisoners to Tehran and denied the British government consular access to them. If the accounts are right — and they are backed up by the master of the ship they were boarding — then the Iranians committed an act of war in snatching the Britons. Last summer, the kidnapping of two of its soldiers caused Israel to go to war with Hezbollah.

The lack of public anger is less surprising, however, when you consider that we have known for months that British troops are almost certainly being killed by militias supplied and trained by Iran. The same morning that the British sailors were seized, one of the most senior British officers in Iraq, Lieutenant Colonel Justin Maciejewski, reported that the ‘vast majority’ of attacks on British troops were being funded by Iran.

The unpalatable truth is that both the public and the political class are largely indifferent to a hostile power murdering British troops. It is hard to imagine this being the case in the past. The murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher in 1984 by an occupant of the Libyan embassy in London scandalised public opinion and led to the severing of diplomatic relations with Libya. But there is now a general feeling that Iran’s actions are the price we pay for our involvement in Iraq, that somehow we had this coming. Iraq has so soured the public that, according to a recent poll, less than a third of the public would trust a British government if it said that military action was necessary to counter a direct threat to our national security.

Then again, perhaps people don’t want to draw too much attention to Iran’s hostile acts because they fear that such aggression might be used to justify a strike on Iran. After all, the British public regard the US presence in Iraq as a greater threat to world peace than Iran, and George W. Bush as more of a danger than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Rules of engagement that appear to have the avoidance of escalation — not troop protection — at their core are a product of this jaded mindset. Lt-Cdr Erik Horner of the US Navy, who works with the Royal Navy in patrolling Iraqi waters, expressed surprise that the British did not confront the Iranians more forcefully, telling reporters, ‘Our reaction was, “Why didn’t your guys defend themselves?”’ The most obvious explanation is that they were under orders not to. It would be entirely in keeping with Iranian strategic doctrine if they targeted British, not American, forces because they saw Britain’s pre-announced intention to withdraw from Iraq as a sign of weakness and an unwillingness to fight.