Hostage taking redux...

Just as predictably that night follows day, the lines of this new battle between the rest of the world and the Iranian mullahs have been drawn. So much so that in its absence, we would have been more than perplexed to say the least. What we are referring to is the report (BBC March 24, 2007) that the 15 British sailors have been seized near the Shatt al-Arab, at the Iran-Iraq end of the Persian Gulf, by the Revolutionary Guards. BBC reports that according to the Fars news agency, the sailors have been moved to Tehran.

Mullah Khamenei had warned the world earlier this week that if they "want to treat us with threats and enforcement of coercion and violence, undoubtedly they must know that the Iranian nation and authorities will use all their capacities to strike enemies that attack." (Wall Street Journal, March 24, 2007) Now that the world is warned. As we said, so predictably. What mullah Khamenei is referring to, of course, is the formidable threat of hostage taking and terrorist mischiefs that the grand masters of terror are so adept to.

The world must take his words seriously. Whether it has the gut to respond with resolute voice remains entirely another matter. If the the collective wisdom of the civilized world does not chicken out, as it has in many pasts when confronted with the specter of the mullahs wrath.