Cruise Missile Diplomacy: The Solution for the Iranian Hostage Crisis

All it would take to bring the 14 British sailors and marines held hostage in Tehran home would be a few cruise missiles fired from a British frigate in the Persian Gulf.
All Prime Minister Tony Blair has to do to get his people back is to go on TV and deliver the following message to the Ayatollahs: “if our military personnel are not on a plane traveling back to a British base in Iraq within twelve hours I will order Her Majesty’s ships in the Persian Gulf to start using their cruise missiles to destroy Iran’s oil refineries and the tanker ports which enable the export of oil. There will be no negotiations, if our people are not released unharmed within twelve hours we will take this course of action. My decision is final.”
I imagine if Blair were to make this statement within a couple of hours the British military personnel would be released and crisis quickly forgotten. Okay maybe the Iranians would dither and the Royal Navy would have to fire a few cruise missiles and torch one oil refinery. The result would still be the same the humiliated Islamic Republic would release its prisoners and the matter would be forgotten.
Iran would cave into this pressure because it lacks the military power to attack the Royal Navy and its American allies. More importantly Iran’s economy is based on oil if it stops flowing the Ayatollahs will have no money to pay off their followers with and they’ll be out of power within a few months.
Of course, Blair wouldn’t take this course of action even though it is the logical solution to the crisis. He won’t take it because he doesn’t want to feel criticism from the British press and intellectuals although I think he’d have the full support of the British people. If Blair were willing to act like the great Prime Ministers of the past such as Maggie Thatcher, Clement Atlee and Winston Churchill Iran would never have dared touch a British sailor. I imagine Maggie is throwing things at the TV and Winston and Clement are rolling over in their graves.
Tony Blair has proven to the world that he is nothing but a hypocritical fop and Britain a paper tiger. Blair sends his soldiers and sailors on pointless missions then refuses to use Britain’s military power to back them up. Blair isn’t the only problem here, anytime it wanted Parliament could remove Blair from office and replace him with a real Prime Minister it won’t.
There are other pressures that keep Blair from acting as well. The bloated military establishments in the US and Britain and their neoconservative mouthpieces need a menace to fear. If Iran can be stopped by one frigate firing a couple of cruise missiles and torching an oil refinery there is no need for a massive military deployment to the Persian Gulf or an elaborate attack to destroy the Iranian nuclear program. Or for the idiotic military adventure in Iraq for that matter.
If a little old fashioned gun boat diplomacy can shut down the Ayatollahs there is no need for the United Nations and all of its pointless protocol. No need for the mindless political theater in New York City and for the Secretary General and all the overpaid bureaucrats on the Hudson. Nor is there any need for the bloated Diplomatic service at the US State Department and the British Foreign Office. The President and Prime Minister can communicate with Iran’s leaders by calling them on the phone or holding a press conference.
Unfortunately Tony Blair is the perfect modern politician a pathetic little man afraid too afraid of the political implications to take any action. So Britain is no longer a major power, just a bad joke that will join France and Germany in the ash heap of history.
Hopefully we Americans will learn from this idiotic series of events and take some real action against Iran before it is too late. If we don’t we’re going to find ourselves in the middle of a needless war with a third rate power for no real reason.