What would Adm. Nelson have done?

Jack Kelly:

That noise you hear as you pass the crypt at St. Paul's cathedral in London is Lord Horatio Nelson spinning in his grave.

Admiral Nelson was the greatest seaman of a seafaring nation which has produced many. If he had been in command of the HMS Cornwall in the Persian Gulf last Friday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair would not now be begging the mullahs in Tehran for the release of his illegally seized sailors and marines.

"No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy," Lord Nelson said.

Lord Nelson, alas, was killed at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The captain of the HMS Cornwall is Commodore Nick Lambert, a more modern sort. He did nothing as six Iranian speedboats seized the boarding party from his ship as they were leaving the freighter they had inspected in Iraqi territorial waters.

The 14 men and one woman have been taken to Tehran, where the mullahs are threatening to try them as spies.

U.S. Navy Lt. Commander Erik Horner, executive officer of the USS Underwood, which shares patrol duty in the Shatt al Arab with the HMS Cornwall, expressed surprise that the British let their sailors and marines be taken without a fight.

"U.S. Navy rules of engagement say we not only have a right to self defense, but also an obligation to self defense," LtCdr Horner told the British newspaper the Independent. "Our reaction was 'Why didn't your guys defend themselves?'"

British rules of engagement "are very much de-escalatory, because we don't want wars starting," the former First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Alan West, told the BBC.

"Rather than roaring into action and sinking everything in sight we try to step back and that, of course, is why our chaps were, in effect, able to be captured and taken away," he said.

Lord Nelson never met Admiral West or Commodore Lambert, of course, but he knew the type very well: "If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain his opinion is against fighting," Lord Nelson said.

So Britain has responded to the seizure with stern words. "We have certainly sent the message back to them very clearly indeed," said Prime Minister Tony Blair. "They should not be under any doubts at all about how seriously we regard this act, which is unjustified and wrong."

But actions -- or in this case, inactions -- speak louder. Mr. Blair has a much bigger problem on his hands now than if Commodore Lambert had acted as Lord Nelson would have, and sent the Iranian gunboats to the bottom of the Shatt al Arab.

What Iran did is an act of war. What Iran is threatening -- to try as "spies" sailors in uniform seized on the high seas -- is a clear cut violation of Article 46 of the Geneva Conventions.

If you respond to such provocations only with sternly worded letters of protest, you can be sure there will be more such provocations in the future.

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Seizing hostage is a very cowardly form of warfare. It is what the villains do as they are trying to get away from a day light bank robbery in a cop show. But it is what the Iranian's cowardly leaders do as a matter of course. Britain should have understood that and engaged at the point of attack rather than allowing the situation to escalate into a crisis. The failure to escalate early will require greater escalation later with these ayatollahs of bad faith.