Diplomatic triumphs?

Mark Steyn:

Watching Tottenham Hotspur fans taking on the Spanish constabulary at a European soccer match the other night, I found myself idly speculating on what might have happened had those Iranian kidnappers made the mistake of seizing 15 hard-boiled football yobs who hadn't got the Blair memo about not escalating the situation.

Instead, as we know, the mullahs were fortunate enough to take hostage 15 Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines. Which were which was hard to say upon their release. The Queen's Navee had been demobbed. The token gal was dressed up as an Islamic woman and the 14 men had been kitted out in Ahmadinejad leisurewear. Which is not just a ghastly fashion faux pas but a breach of the increasingly one-way Geneva Conventions. But they smiled and they waved. Wave, Britannia! Britannia, waive the rules!

The Associated Press reported the story as follows: ''Analysis: Hope For More Iran Compromises.''

Well, if by ''compromise'' you mean Tehran didn't put them up for a show trial and behead them, you might have a point. With this encouraging development, we might persuade them to wipe only half of Israel off the map, or even nuke some sparsely occupied corner of the Yukon instead. With the momentum of this "compromise" driving events, all manner of diplomatic triumphs are possible.

Tony Blair was at pains to point out that the hostages were released ''without any deal, without any negotiation, without any side agreement of any nature.'' But he's missing (or artfully sidestepping) the point: Tehran didn't want a deal. It wanted the humbling of the Great Satan's principal ally. And it got it. Very easily. And it paid no price for it. And it has tested in useful ways the empty pretensions of the U.N., the EU and also NATO, whose second largest fleet is now a laughingstock in a part of the world where it helps to be taken seriously.

...

Even if there is more going on than meets the eye, what meets the eye is so profoundly damaging to the credibility of great nations that no amount of lethal special ops could compensate for it. Power is only as great as the perception of power. The Iranians understand that they can't beat America or Britain in tank battles or air strikes so they choose other battlefields on which to hit them. That's why the behavior of the captives gives great cause for concern: There's no point training guys to be tough fighting men of the Royal Marines when you're in a bloody little scrap in Sierra Leone (as they were a couple of years ago) if you allow them to crumple on TV in front of the entire world.

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Europeans and more and more Americans believe they can live in a world with all the benefits of global prosperity and none of the messy obligations necessary to maintain it. And so they cruise around war zones like floating NGOs. Iran called their bluff, and televised it to the world. In the end, every great power is as great as its credibility, and the only consolation after these last two weeks is that Britain doesn't have much more left to lose.

There is more between the ...'s.

I think we should call events like this "reverse gunboat diplomacy." There was a time when you could show strength by sailing your gunboats into an area where their mere presence was perceived as a threat. What the Iranians have done with the Brits is show that presence without confrontational rules of engagement is pretty hollow. That is a lesson for the UN and the EU as well, but it is doubtful they will comprehend it.