It seems as though the latest 2 car bomb attempts in London and the single attack on Glasgow airport appear to be testing and probing the new Brown government. I wonder if its more than just a message but a way of trying to scare the new government into pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan and not just the warning of "we are still here".  

There seems to be a view that the intelligence services are not doing their jobs properly monitoring these groups. However the job for them to monitor these people is incredibly vast, however there is the argument that the USA is just as much a target and they do not seem to have had any attacks like this after 9/11, is Britain being seen as more of a soft touch by the terrorists because of our more lenient human rights laws? The Muslim community will feel the spotlight back on them more than ever now as the security services start to do the usual probing into their neighborhoods and the other terrorist agenda of segregating these communities more from the rest of the population will be on its way. It seems so unfair and it was the same pressure the black community felt in their neighborhoods when stop and search was introduced during recent knife and gun attacks. I remember when the first terrorist attacks started I had my very first stop and search as I was carrying a laptop bag at the time. I knew why the police had to do it but I couldn't help but feel that the colour of my skin had something to do with it, but I didn't mind I knew the police couldn't target their search at everyone they had to narrow down their searches I suppose. Better safe than sorry right?

These kind of segregations always take place, the Americans did it after the Pearl Harbor attack keeping a close eye on the local Japanese population with an internment program. I think the only thing that can help is education and greater ties between communities, naturally communities of different cultures stay segregated they have done so from the beginning of time. However it is usually one common stand, interest or something they both believe in that brings them together. I suppose the question is: Why is being British not something that brings people together living in this country?

There appears to be even more politics surrounding this issue and the irony of the situation is that its all over 0.5km of uninhabited sea water (according to Iran). That's right 0.5km a measurement so small when you think about it, lets just have a good think about it now.. that's 500 meters put into terms its probably 1 lap around a regular track at a schools sports day field. Now what secrets or installments could Iran possibly have hidden in that 500 meters worth of sea they have claimed as their own waters? Maybe its the fish they are trying to protect on their side of the border? No matter how you look at it when you get down to the actual argument there isn't much of case the Iranians are claiming the UK servicemen went 0.5km into Iranian territory the British say they didn't. The Iranians display a GPS device that supposedly proves they (UK servicemen) were, although there was probably nothing to stop the guards who ambushed the UK Servicemen from taking a new co-ordinate with the device after they had taken it off the UK servicemen. The Iranians of course will ignore any satellite evidence that proves otherwise because now the evidence has become irrelevant it has all become part of a far bigger political game that is pushing the price of oil up and trying to humiliate the British. The letters sent back from Faye Turney added an interesting bit to the end which makes you think the letter was written under pressure which states

"Isn't it time for us to start withdrawing our forces from Iraq and let them determine their own future."

It makes you wonder if the Iranians are trying to turn the public against the British government and hoping this will put pressure on the UK to move away from Iraq? The truth of the matter is now neither government wants to loose face and neither one of them appears to have a way of backing down without doing so. The only other action if diplomacy fails in military action something that neither side will want to see happen and its probably what would have happened if the Iranians had captured US servicemen instead of British. At the moment the only deterrent from a military point of view the British have is the Trident nuclear one and I don't think anyone in the UK government wants to even think of going there.

Iran has denied the UK embassy in Iran access to the detained UK servicemen in an article here on the BBC website.

I had said previously in my blog entry yesterday I believe the Iranians will be milking this incident for all its worth. It looks as though there have even been calls to put the servicemen on trial, I am guessing this will probably be for spying. Iran off course knows how to play its own public and how to breed an atmosphere of contempt for the west its been doing so for many years now. My guess is that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who hasn't been doing himself any favors on how he has let the Iranian economy slip will probably seize on this opportunity to distract people from this. His nuclear ambitions has also been a distraction point for his people, the sanctions it will bring to his country could be quite crippling we all saw the effects the sanctions had on Iraq when Sadam was still in power.

The only peaceful use of nuclear power is for electric power generation which for an oil rich state is not a high priority in my opinion unless Iran has suddenly developed a new zero emission policy to help curb global warming?

I am pretty sure many have seen the news about the 15 Royal Navy servicemen captured by Iranian forces and can't help but feel the whole incident is smeared in politics with our poor UK servicemen caught right in the middle. I think its rather bad manners for Iran to act in the way it has, if it want's to start being treated as a fair country of this world it has really got to stop pulling off these shenanigans, what's more disconcerting is the fact Iran has done this once before when they captured 6 UK service men who were patrolling the Shatt al-Arab waterway on behalf of the Iraqi government. Even if the UK servicemen were in the wrong (and I am not saying they were) it was totally against the Geneva convention for them to be paraded on Iranian TV blind folded and then made to believe that they were going to be assassinated.

No doubt the Iranian government will play this incident for all it is worth. If anything's to go by they will force the UK servicemen to admit they were in Iranian waters (because forcing someone to say something means it actually happened), they will probably parade them on Iranian TV and then secretly talking to US and UK diplomats hint that it would also be nice if those sanctions the UN wanted to impose on Iran for their nuclear program suddenly went away.

Iran really hasn't done it self any favors and is probably quite aware that America has Iran next in its spotlight especially now that evidence has been released showing that Tehran has been engineering a lot of the insurgency near Basra. Iran's seizure of the UK servicemen is probably what it sees as a carefully constructed move, it will want to play very carefully in order to get some concessions out of US and the UK around it nuclear program. Iran could get its way because the UK public is keen on getting the servicemen returned promptly or the move could backfire horribly on Iran and it that case they may just blame an Iranian figure lower down the food chain for the incident. It is also quite easy to see how carefully it was organized by the Iranians who swooped on the UK servicemen with not 2 but six boats surely those boats would have been pulled in from other patrol areas?

Tags: iran iraq UK servicemen