Where is the outrage at the kidnapping of our Marines?
James Forsyth deplores the collective indifference to Iran’s act of war, and warns that this episode could badly damage Britain’s standing in the world One doesn’t need to be Lord Palmerston thundering about ‘civis Romanus sum’ and ‘the strong arm of England’ during the Don Pacifico affair to feel enraged by Iran’s capture and detention of 15 British sailors and marines. Yet the general reaction has been one of indifference. One looks in vain for mass demonstrations outside the Iranian embassy or any other signs of solidarity with our men and women in uniform.
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.
All of which makes the episode dangerous not only for the men and women who have been seized by the Iranians, but also for our national security interests. We are fast approaching a moment of decision about whether we want to be anything more than Switzerland with nukes. If we collectively shrug off Iran’s actions, we will be condemning ourselves to global impotence. A power that can be bullied without fear of retribution by a second-rate power is not much of a power at all.
There is a distinct possibility that the Iranians might try to use these hostages to drive Britain and the United States apart for instance, by offering to return them in exchange for five people associated with the Revolutionary Guard whom the US seized in northern Iraq. Such an offer must be rebuffed despite its appeal to the anti-war, anti-American zeitgeist. There is no equivalence between agents of a foreign power stoking violence inside another country’s borders and sailors carrying out customs inspections at the request of both the United Nations and a democratically elected government.
The Iranians might also push for a redefinition of their territorial waters or a de facto acknowledgement of their suzerainty over southern Iraq. But any bartering with the Iranians over the return of these hostages would merely encourage them to abduct more British troops in exchange for further concessions.
Another danger is that the public decides that this incident proves that ‘punching above our weight’ is not worth the effort. Why should British forces put their lives on the line to delineate the maritime border between Iran and Iraq? What business of ours is it if Iran wants to have a nuclear weapon? We could retreat into grubby isolation.
This would be wrong not just on moral but pragmatic grounds. However much we might wish that the rest of the world would go away, it won’t. If the Coalition’s problems in Iraq and the high price of oil make the Iranians feel confident enough to provoke a nuclear power — and the closest ally of the world’s sole superpower — then imagine how it would behave once it had a nuclear weapon itself. Even if we wanted to, we could not stand aside from the chaos that would ensue in the world’s most strategically vital region once Iran joined the nuclear club.
Much has been rightly made of how the disgracefully poor housing and healthcare offered to military families breaches the compact between society and the military. But our indifference to the kidnapping of these sailors and marines does so in an even more fundamental way. To choose to ignore a war or hostile acts against our troops because it is just too difficult to deal with is unconscionable. Whatever we might feel about Iraq — and 60 per cent of us now view it as a mistake — we cannot just forget or excuse attacks against the troops serving there.
The danger is that the longer this stand-off goes on, the further back in our minds these brave men and women will fall. We’ll go back to speculating about Prince Harry’s ‘other woman’ and David Cameron’s hair parting. For all the weakness and vacillation that the Carter administration displayed during the 1979–81 Iran hostage crisis, the American public at least never forgot the hostages. If we do, we will be betraying not only the unfortunate 15 who are currently languishing in an Iranian jail but also our values and any claims we may have to still be a force for anything in the world.
Britain’s interests, compassion and dignity demand a strong approach. We must never allow it to be thought that the British military can be attacked with impunity.
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