East of Suez

It has been about 35 years since Britain announced they would not police the area east of the Suez. Yet Britain has been involved at our side in the Persian Gulf in two wars against Saddam's Iraq and in Afghanistan. The latest hostage crisis confronts the British with a potential military problem in an area that Britain can no longer easily project power to. The British military is high quality but shrunken--perhaps too shrunken to act easily.

Ralph Peters wonders about the very fiber of the British military:

What on earth happened to the Royal Marines? They're members of what passes for an elite unit. Has the Labor government's program to gut the U.K. military - grounding planes, taking ships out of service and deactivating army units - also ripped the courage from the breasts of those in uniform?

The female sailor who broke down first and begged for her government to surrender was pathetic enough. But when Royal Marines started pleading for tea and sympathy . . . Ma, say it ain't so!

Meanwhile, back at No. 10 "Downer" Street, British politicians are more upset that President Bush described their sailors and Marines as "hostages" than they are with the Iranians.

Look, it would have done us all proud if these hostages had kept silent and defiant. But I am unable to bring myself to condemn these captives as individuals. I don't know how I would hold up. And I don't know what their standing orders are in these circumstances.

But I can go with Peters' broader question:

The correct response to the seizure of 15 British military hostages - if not released promptly - would've been to hit 15 Revolutionary Guards facilities or vessels along the Iranian coast, then threaten to hit 30 deeper inland the next day.

By hammering the now-degenerate Revolutionary Guards, the Coalition would've strengthened the less-nutty and less-vicious regular military and emboldened President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's growing number of opponents within the government. (It was telling that the Revolutionary Guards could only muster about 200 demonstrators to harass the British embassy - it didn't look much like 1979.)

Instead, we allowed the Iranian hardliners to humiliate a once-great military and encourage hostage-takers everywhere.

I mentioned the same response myself.

Prime Minister Blair says that tough decisions may be needed if the Iranians do not release their hostages:

The prime minister said Britain has had "two very clear tracks" throughout the 12-day crisis, which has further strained relations between Iran and the West.

"One is to try and settle this by way of peaceful, calm negotiation, get our people back as quickly as possible ... The other is to make it clear that if that's not possible, then we have to take increasingly tougher decisions."

It is not too late, I think, for the British to go postal on the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards). The latter half of this month would be good.

Britain will have to respond to the hostage crisis with the military it has now and not the military it had in 1982 or the military it would like to have.

But after it is over, the British must confront the question of maintaining a military they need. Iran' kidnapping of fifteen British Marines and sailors is forcing the British to confront their past abdication of responsibility and their current bare bones commitment.

Is Peters right to wonder about British military? Will Britannia rule or kneel?