Consequences of Fecklessness

Ralph Peters nails it today.

Inviting Attack: Talk Surrender and Our Enemies Act

Seized illegally, 15 British sailors and Royal Marines are hostages in Iran. Thanks, Speaker Pelosi.

It's amazing that Big Media hasn't made the obvious connection between the congressional Democrats long-promised move to hand over the keys to Iraq to al Qaeda and the decision by Iranian hardliners to bolster their position within Iran by grabbing those Brits.

The Iranians didn't even wait for the final vote count. The rhetoric in the wake of the turnover in Congress was sufficient to convince them that Washington is ready to bail out of Iraq. The extremists in Tehran want to push us out of the Persian Gulf, as well.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his faction have been losing ground internally, but they hope a confrontation with the West will unite the people of Iran behind them. The Revolutionary Guards weren?t ready to take on U.S. forces directly, but they felt confident they could get away with grabbing Brits - and so far, they've been proven right.

Iran's hardliners watch our actions closely. Sometimes they read the smoke signals correctly, sometimes they don't. They calculated that Prime Minister Tony Blair is now so weak that he wouldn't dare retaliate. Furthermore, they figured that the Bush administration has been pushed onto the defensive by Congress and wouldn't move to aid our main ally.

Read the rest.

Meanwhile, another hostage "apologizes" today.

One of the 15 British service members held captive in Iran appeared Friday on the government's Arabic-language TV and apologized for entering Iranian waters "without permission." Prime Minister Tony Blair said Iran will face "continued isolation" if it continues "in this way."

In London, the British Foreign Office also denounced the broadcast and said displaying the captives for "propaganda purposes" was "outrageous."

The serviceman, Royal Marine rifleman Nathan Thomas Summers, said he was aware that the incident in which he was seized was the second time since 2004 that British military personnel had entered Iranian waters.

"Again I deeply apologize for entering your waters," Summers said in the clip broadcast on Al-Alam television. "We trespassed without permission."

I'm sure renowned foreign policy analyst Rosie O'Donnell feels vindicated.

British Sailors "Admit" Entering Iran Waters

Sure they do. We shouldn't doubt what the Iranians say, right?

Fifteen British sailors and marines detained off Iraq by the Iranian navy have admitted illegally entering Iranian waters, senior Iranian commander General Alireza Afshar said Saturday.

"They are currently being questioned and have admitted to violating the territorial waters of the Islamic repubic," Afshar, the official spokesman of the army chief of staff, told the semi-official Fars news agency.

He told the Arabic language service of state television: "We have solid evidence that they were detained in our territorial waters. They themselves have confessed and admitted their mistake."

I question the timing.

The UN Security Council is due to vote in New York on whether to impose further sanctions against Iran.

The move was announced by Britain's UN envoy, who predicted a unanimous vote.

The sanctions would block Iranian arms exports and freeze the assets of individuals and companies involved in Iran's nuclear and missile programmes.

Elsewhere, Pajamas Media has High Stakes Hold 'em in the Persian Gulf.

Also see the American Thinker: Did Mahmoud Blink?