Britain 15 Back Home

This is good news.

It's hard to know what to think, since I don't trust Ahmadinejad one bit.

I listened to Laura Ingraham on my way to work today, and she had lots of calls from former and current military, who were upset about the way the captives conducted themselves. One was from the wife of a former Royal Marine, who said her husband was apalled that the captives appeared to have let themselves be used for Iran's propaganda. He had been trained to give captors the Royal equivalent of Name, Rank, and Serial Number, and to refuse any further cooperation.

Another caller pointed out that if the Iranians were holding a gun to the head of one or more of their fellow captives, then the Brits on the videos may have been justified.

We don't know--and we may not know--what was done to them and what was threatened.

Someone else (where's my memory when I need it?) said that the British rules of engagement (ROE) in Iraq prevented the ship's captain from defending his ship and its crew when the Iranians first attacked. I wouldn't be surprised, since our military's hands were tied in a lot of ways in Iraq before General Petraeus took over. If the Iranians knew the limits imposed on the British Navy, then that may have been what emboldened them.

Before Iran announced that they'd be releasing the captives, several different conservative talk show hosts said that if they were PM Tony Blair, they'd tell the Iranians secretly that if they didn't release the 15, Britain would quietly but thoroughly destroy Iran's oil refineries.

Did Blair really do this and give Tehran the ability to save face by looking magnanimous? We won't know until Blair has departed this world and his papers are published.

In the end, it looks like Ahmadinejad won this round. All we know for sure is that he gave the British men some new suits (likely from his own tailor), and the woman got some ugly clothes and a headscarf. He gave them all some lovely parting gifts, shook their hands, and let them leave Iran. And he got to say that he did it out of the goodness of his heart.

I doubt if the 15 really care what brought about their release. They're just happy to be home.