Would the West be encouraging the anti-Democratic revolt in Ukraine if ...

A counter-factual question. Would the West be encouraging the antidemocratic putsch in Ukraine if Ukraine hadn't surrendered its nuclear weapons ?

This is an academic question that is likely to be being asked in Tehran right now.

Appeasement is denial just as surely as ignoring debts was

Trouble is brewing and may soon boil over.

Appeasement of Iran and North Korea is getting close to running its course. The mad dog element of both regime's appears to be getting out of control and grows more bold with each show of respect act of appeasement by the west.

Some of the press speculate that the vapour trail of Los Angeles last week was a Chinese ICBM launch, but it has to be considered that it was a North Korean launch as a final warning to stand clear before they start assaults on South Korea.

Just as when politicians let the debt mountain get out of hand there will still be a price to pay - with interest. And that price is getting bigger with each day appeasement continues.

This can't be ducked, but it can be made worse by appeasement.

The problem is that the US is crippled by having Obama as President, and the enemies of the west know this all too well.

Further: I realise this can sound like warmongering - it isn't meant to be. But if your enemies discover you won't defend yourself when pushed you should expect a lot of shoving.

Of course any prelonged conflict in Korea will be an almighty mess - for details see Max Hasting's book on Korea, from the UK point of view a forgotten war. Given current military commitments the UK could probably only contribute the odd submarine and ship and a squadron of- saved at the last minute probably after talking to the American's - Tornado strike aircraft.

WW III perhaps sooner than you think

There is some discussion about when World Wars started, suggesting that the battle between the British and French across the globe was really the first. But the Great War certainly fitted the bill, before we realised there were going to be sequels.

Well there is something worrying happening between Venezuela and Columbia and it may indicate a widening world conflict.

Iran has close and tightening links with Venezuela. Iran can make trouble in the West Bank and in Lebanon at the touch of a button. Iran can make life very unpleasant in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran can probably choke the world's wind pipe in the straights of Hormuz, at least for a while.

And Iran is very clearly moving to develop complex nuclear weapons and ICBM delivery capabilities.

Looks like the excuse and means for WW III to me.

As the US slowly weakens from in fiscal imbalances and over commitment - a process that Russia and China help with, Iran prepares itself to cause trouble for the US across the globe.

Will Obama's Presidency end the way of Carter's with humiliation at the hands of Iran ?

It would never have happened to Bush, or perhaps even Clinton. But the US is adrift right now with no direction slowly bleeding to death and its enemies just seem to be waiting for their moment ....

This is a recipe for global conflict.

Weakness invites intimation - and the Labour government is very weak

The history of the Iranian revolution is punctuated with taking advantage of weak foreign players, for domestic advantage.

So we had President Carter being humiliated with the US Embassy hostages, the UK and Royal Navy humiliated with the sailors who lost their iPod's disaster and now the harassment of the UK embassy and arrest of what I assume are Iranian nationals employed by the UK Embassy.

At the time of the US embassy invasion it was said that nobody would have dared interfere with the then Soviet embassy as they would have responded with spectacular and probably nuclear vengeance.

The UK responds with the gap year student David "Banana's" Miliband. You can see why the Iranian regime might think its on a winner with playing the UK's Labour government for fools again. ( After all what happened after the humilation of the Royal Navy ? )

These humiliations are a sign of the lose of face and respect that the run down of our defences and pathetic no entities that occupy Labour cabinet ministerial positions have left us with.

Labour are now hurting our country with every minute they shame us all by clinging to office with.

An act of war - hidden by Labour ?

If the report that Iran has been paying Iraqi insurgents- effectievly to kill UK Servicemen and women is true then it is an act of war.

You then have to wonder why Labour has kept in quiet...

I don't think bullshit about an armed service day really undoes the damage of letting our servicemen be killed by a foriegn state and then hiding the fact from our people.

Note: Given the way that the UK secret services have been politicies and the causual and habitual lying that is come from the Labour government it is possible that this forms part of another misinformation campaign.

Lebanon war second half starting now - soon to widden to war with Iran and Syria

Its hard not to come to that conclusion.

Iran has been systematically trying to encircle Israel making alliance with the Sunni Hamas in Gaza and the Shia Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Now all that Muslim unity stuff is being shown to be just the lies you would expect. Hezbollah is making its bid to subjugate Lebanon to the will of Iran and the Shia sect of Islam - you just know that has to suck.

Of course Israel won't be able to stand for this - as Iran's leadership fully understand.

So its time for the second half of the Lebanon war that the international community was so keen to stop before Israel destroyed Hezbollah.

At the same time our politicians know that Iran is probably butchering British service personnel with their bombs in Afghanistan, Iraq and Katyusha rockets in Basra - both techniques hallmarks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. But I guess Gordon Brown has his own career to worry about and doesn't have much time for dealing with our enemies as long as they don't kill our young men and women too quickly for the voters to notice.

The Americans are running out of patience - as Hillary Clinton's warnings a few weeks ago show. The Iranians are run by a group who are looking forward to the apocalypse.

Unless they change track they will soon get their wish. But what is truly evil is that this game is just being played by a few middle aged leaders in Iran who are condemning a bright, well educated and highly civilised population to a dreadful fate.

Update Robert Fox takes a similar view over at the First Post. His comments on Hezbollah being able to take on the UN should give the French something to think about.

Israel is now warning Iran is behind all this. So were back to the streets of Sarajevo again - waiting for the spark.

So how long does it take to dig a tunnel and plant a large bomb/mine ?

The answer to that question will give you the minimum amount of time that Hamas have been planning on killing off Fatah.

And we know Hamas take their orders from Iran.

At the same time an anti Syrian MP in Lebanon is assassinated most likely by pro Syrian forces, and Syria and Iran are acting together.

The US states clearly that Iran in arming the Taliban.

There is a general pattern here - all the threads go back to Iran.

We see the Israelis giving Syria a last chance at peace - their intelligence is good, you can only wonder what they are positioning themselves for.

Update: The Jerusalem Post reports the tunnel bpmb as being 1 Tonne is size - no after thought that !

We need to descide what were about.

It is starting to look like Iran is going to use its kidnapped hostages to help intimidate the rest of the region.

The British government needs to decide what its about. Sit down and discuss just how far we are willing to go. If the answer is a Blair clime down of the type he carried out over the British EU rebate then he should take the humiliation now and withdraw our forces from the Gulf. [It may be that the military's advice is that we have no choice - in which case its better to listen now. Though of course Balir gets the blame for letting this come about.]

But if not, than planning for war needs to start ( and none of that disgraceful NuLabour not ordering equipment in case their own pathetic back benchers get a little upset ). Not I'm not talking about invasion, but destroying large amount of Iran's military infrastructure and major elements of its economy. This can be achieved by the RAF.

We will need an airfield, perhaps building one in southern Iraq, as the Royal Navy can't protect itself any more. By making such intentions clear to the Iranians, but not public we may be able to resolve this issue without any further trouble - but we will be able to finish it if we need to.

What are the betting on NuLabour being to pathetic to do either ?

PS If you think the Argentines aren't watching re:Falklands then you are very naive (perhaps your a Labour MP).

Update: Blair - as ever trying to cash in on Mrs T's more popular moment - tells us he would have sent a task force to regain the Falklands also. I think this is rubbish - and now his bluff has been called.

MOD admits Iraniains crossed 3.1 kilometers to kidnapp British service people

So how did they get so close to the boarder and not be detected or stopped on the way in or out ?

This is the elephant in the room here ! The MOD quotes nautical miles at 1.7 (just had a BBC news flash - will confirm distance latter ) - perhaps in the hope of minimising the distance in peoples minds (most of us have forgotten that a nautical mile is longer than a mile - hence the 3.1 kilometre's ).

So the Iranians had to travel 6.2 km stopping mid way to carry out the kidnap.

This is a spectacular embarrassment for the Navy and Britain's NuLabour government.

Update: BBC web page now up - they quote the 1.7nm, interesting to see if they convert it to km as the day goes forward.

Further update: EU Referendum gets what I'm talking about here - as does Ann Winterton.

What's odd about the kidnapping of 15 British service people

There is a place for quiet diplomacy, but I am starting to think the government has been too quiet over the abduction of British personnel from Iraqi waters.

It could be diplomatic - but I'm starting to wonder. Think about it the Iraqi area of sea is quite small, but strategically crucial for the flow of oil out of Iraq. Given current tension with Iran it should be protected, airborne radar etc and intelligence looking all over it.

Rumour also has it that the Iranian abducted the service people well inside Iraqi waters, not just near the edge.

So how come the British and Americans had no assets that could:

1) Detect the incursion on its way in ?
2) Prevent them leaving with their prisoners ?

Is part of the reason that No10 and the NuLabour government has been so quiet not the masterful diplomacy that is hinted at, but some real embarrassment at their own failures.

If it turns out that the the incident happened well inside Iraqi waters then there was time for command decision to be referred to HMS Cornwall and perhaps even higher up the chain of command. Have any Journalists asked if political control was exercised as the incident took place - eg by Tony Blair himself here ? (They surely should have been aware of a possible wish by the Iranians to exchange prisoners with the Americans arrest of revolutionary guards for assisting in terrorism in Iraq.)

They seem to have been far to keen to play this quiet and as we now all know this government doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Update: An article on this in the DT here ends - there's something fishy here and certainly in Adam Ingram's answer:

Questions were asked in the House of Commons yesterday about whether Britain's rules of engagement in Iraq prevented the Cornwall from opening fire on the Iranians.

Adam Ingram, the Defence Minister, said: "There is too much speculation about what happened and what did not happen."

And further: Suppose the government does produce all the evidence that the abduction took place well inside Iraqi water - what that shows is they can take photos, but not control the area. Its like a CCTV camera with no police available on call out.

What is the explaination for the Royal Navy's failure ?

There's a point not getting much attention right now, and its this:

We know the Iranian's are willing to concentrate force to capture British military personnel by crossing into Iraq. They have done this before.

Then why were they allowed to gain the upper hand ? (Was it an intelligence failure or is it that we are too weak to protect our own forces ?)

Do we have adequate forces for the capability and aggressive nature of the Iranian forces ?

Why could HMS Cornwell not support its boarding party ?

Why was no air support used ? Was it not available ?

What changes are begin made to prevent this occurring again ?

MiaS suspects that the failure of Gordon Brown to adequately fund the Royal Navy is part of this national humiliation and failure to protect our service personnel.

How much danger our the Royal Navy in from a preemptive attack on their ship with Iranian missiles ?

And finally - why aren't these questions being asked in the MSM - especially the BBC ?


Update: The BBC now have Former Royal Navy chief Admiral Sir Alan West answering some questions on this. The answer below is in the area I'm asking about.

extract ---

What are the rules of engagement in this type of situation?

The rules are very much de-escalatory, because we don't want wars starting. The reason we are there is to be a force for good, to make the whole area safe, to look after the Iraqi big oil platforms and also to stop smuggling and terrorism there.

So we try to downplay things. Rather then roaring into action and sinking everything in sight we try to step back and that, of course, is why our chaps were effectively able to be captured and taken away.

If we find this is going to be a standard practice we need to think very carefully about what rules of engagement we want and how we operate. One can't allow as a standard practice nations to capture a nation's servicemen. That is clearly wrong.

--end extract

Yes - it is clearly wrong - hence suggesting the Navy has failed.

How the US could crush Iran

I said a while ago, when commenting on an ill informed article in the Daily Telegraph on why attacking Iran wouldn't work by Anne Applebaum, that the US will not just go for the Nuclear sites. Now the BBC are starting to report what their plans may be. ( This is no surprise to anyone involved in military things - its part of an almost standard air war plan. )

Now leaking this sort of information is no doubt made to ratchet up the pressure - but we know the US follows through on this sort of thing. ( Blue Shark TV has a good clip on this point here. )

I don't think the Mullahs can claim that the US is bluffing - as Saddam tried to convince himself.

I note also Russia starting to put on pressure on over payments for a nuclear reactor ( perhaps coordinated ).

A case is being made that Ahmadinejad has been misunderstood here, but I'm not so sure - I think he knows full well what the impact of his words are.

So the ball is now in the Iranian governments court. If they want to play for time then they will need to clime down.

By coincidence the only way of being reasonably sure their nuclear weapons preparations have stopped is on site nuclear inspections.

This could yet work out....

The calls for appeasment make negotiation less effective

War with Iran is in no one's interests say Anne Applebaum in today's Daily Telegraph.

Man in a Shed thinks her argument is flawed and dangerous - see it here.

In short she thinks the military option is impossible/impractical anyway. ( If so why get so worked up ? - but I think she's missing some rather obvious points ).

As I've said war with Iran would be a great disaster - especially for the people who loss there lives in such a calamity ( and there will most likely be thousands, maybe tens of thousands ). But a nuclear arms race in the middle east will end in the death of millions.

The point to stop all this is now - and EU appeasement just won't do it. A united front, sanctions, and the credible threat of force might.

I've posted a comment below:

Anne,
Unfortunately this sort of argument weakens the negotiating hand of the US and EU. Which perversely makes war more likely.
The Iranians are very vulnerable (despite your repeating the nuclear facilities are hidden / underground line). Just ask Serbia ... Can they protect all their bridges, power stations, oil refineries, government offices, airports, airbases, navy etc. The answer is no. In 30 days the US can knock Iran back 20 years.

Such an attack would be bad for Iran and everyone else as it undermines Iran's development of a stable and responsible system of government (as well as leading to the deaths of many human beings). But equally it cannot be ruled out, and would achieve its objectives. I suspect the Iranian's know this - and are going to negotiate.