It's Almost as if...

Those Brits were being held by the US. Here's one of the captives' statement, from the BBC:

We were blindfolded, our hands were bound, we were forced up against the wall. Throughout our ordeal we faced constant psychological pressure.

Later we were stripped and dressed in pyjamas. The next few nights were spent in stone cells approximately 8ft by 6ft, sleeping on piles of blankets.

All of us were kept in isolation. We were interrogated most nights and presented with two options.

If we admitted we had strayed, we would be back on a plane to the UK pretty soon. If we didn't, we faced up to seven years in prison.

Well that's pretty rotten, and perhaps some rules of international detention were broken; I don't know the laws. But I come from the land of Gitmo. Where are the dogs and the waterboarding? Seven years? Where's the indefinite detention as an enemy combatant? And how is it that these innocent people quickly confessed to something they almost certainly didn't do when all the forms of "psychological pressure" Alberto Gonzalez and Don Rumsfeld dreamed up can't get the men they call the worst people in the world to confess to things that they're proud of?

See, that's the problem with asymmetrical warfare.

But seriously, the Iranians keep failing to adopt democratic best practices. Why can't they follow our example? Here they have committed a deliberate provocation, and the end result seems to be a thaw in diplomatic relations with the British. What they want to do in order to promote the new world order is to blunder into a provocative situation, then refuse to negotiate, escalate the conflict, and declare a clash of civilizations. And the Brits...well, what can you say about these people? They act as if diplomats are there for diplomacy. No wonder they lost their empire.