today

Some people wonder why the 'Cornwall' was so lightly armed. In fact the 'Cornwall' apparently mounts a 4.5-inch gun turret and Harpoon ship-killers. She could easily blast gunboat-class opponents to wreckage from beyond the horizon. In fact, her helicopter could do so on its own using Sea Skua missiles. But before the Pasdaran arrived, there would have been no adequate justification for vapourising them; and after, any use of serious firepower would have killed the British boarding party and probably innocent merchant seamen as well.

Now we are almost in a classic Kashmir situation where yokels (in this case Iranian rather than Pak) with a few weapons "unintentionally" cross a border and give trouble, in this case 'arresting' people doing a reasonable job in an agreed area. The diplomats on both sides can sort this one out but probably may not want to. An easy answer is to automatically liquidate every unauthorised thing that Iran sends across the border - life has already been cheaply treated in this Bush/Blair war and such action could be appropriate, together with further necessary steps like vigorously shelling Iranian harbours or strategic facilities. Iran seems by international standards to have become a 'rogue state'.

IMO: Let us hope the Iranians have more control over their personnel than the Pakis have, and some ability to make sensible decisions rather than the Paki decisions which are pretty mindless. Personally I doubt that ability of the present Iranian govt. and they probably think also that if the Pakis can get away with it in Kashmir with Mother India then Iran can with a few Brits near their border.

We have a terrible position in Pakistan where the Pakis may have been given cruise missiles either by the Chinese or the U.S., in the first case to make general trouble in the region and in the second, presumably to involve themselves in a dispute with regard to Iran and maybe even to 'try' take out major Iranian cities, and generally to promote US arms sales. I've already blogged the first option. The answer to both options is probably to nuke Pakistan, as I've already said. And how about the CIA personnel on the ground in Waziristan - "friendly fire" - the US seem to like using it.