Iranians Are the World's Worst Propagandists

By "worst", I don't mean they're the most evil. I mean they're the most incompetent. This process of releasing letters written in the hand of a captive British sailor, but obviously not written by them, doesn't fool anybody but a handful of nimrods who think these letters are genuine. They've also taken to televising "confessions" from the Brits that are clearly coerced.

However, so far the British government seems content to take their troubles to the impotent United Nations where the biggest threat is a strongly worded letter.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - One of the 15 British service members held captive in Iran appeared Friday on the government's Arabic-language TV and apologized for entering Iranian waters "without permission." The Iranians meanwhile released a third letter allegedly by captured sailor Faye Turney, in which she said she has been "sacrificed" to the policies of the British and U.S. governments.

The Iranian Embassy in London criticized both Britain and the U.N. Security Council on Friday for becoming involved in the crisis.

Prior to the release of the third letter, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose government has insisted that its navy personnel were captured in Iraqi waters, immediately denounced the broadcast and said it would only lead to further isolation for Iran. The standoff has added to tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions and over allegations that Iran is arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq.

"I don't know why the Iranian regime keeps doing this, all it does it heightens people's sense of disgust. Captured personnel being paraded and manipulated in this way, it doesn't fool anyone," he said in a brief statement. "And what the Iranians have to realize is that if they continue in this way they will face continued isolation."

Oooooo. Isolation. How scary.

Although the majority of blame for this situation clearly belongs to the Iranians, the British Navy is also complicit in the current crisis. According to other reports I read the captain of the ship from which the sailors had left saw the Iranians close in on them and didn't react because he was busy trying to radio for permission to act. By the time he finally was able to talk to a senior officer, it was too late to act without endangering the captured sailors.

Had proper rules of engagement been in place, the sailors would not be starring in this bizarre P.R. campaign against the West, and the Iranians who seized them would be resting in the arms of their 72 virgins. I wonder how long it will take the British Navy to revise their rules of engagement?

So what's the real root cause of this incident? It may be as simple as oil. The Iranian economy is in a mess, and every time oil prices drop, they take a further hit. By manufacturing a crisis such as this, they've managed to drive up oil prices and thereby benefit from the increased revenue. If they can keep this up for awhile without precipitating an actual shooting war, they stand to profit from millions of extra oil dollars.