According to this article in the Guardian, the Bush administration offered to perform "aggressive patrols" of Iranian airspace during the British hostage crisis if the British government had requested it.
In the first few days after the captives were seized and British diplomats were getting no news from Tehran on their whereabouts, Pentagon officials asked their British counterparts: what do you want us to do? They offered a series of military options, a list which remains top secret given the mounting risk of war between the US and Iran. But one of the options was for US combat aircraft to mount aggressive patrols over Iranian Revolutionary Guard bases in Iran, to underline the seriousness of the situation.
The British declined the offer and said the US could calm the situation by staying out of it. London also asked the US to tone down military exercises that were already under way in the Gulf. Three days before the capture of the 15 Britons , a second carrier group arrived having been ordered there by president George Bush in January. The aim was to add to pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme and alleged operations inside Iraq against coalition forces.
At the request of the British, the two US carrier groups, totalling 40 ships plus aircraft, modified their exercises to make them less confrontational.
The British government also asked the US administration from Mr Bush down to be cautious in its use of rhetoric, which was relatively restrained throughout.
The incident was a reminder of how inflammatory the situation in the Gulf is. According to some US and British officers, there is already a proxy war under way between their forces and elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard...
With the crisis now over, a remarkable degree of consensus is emerging among British, Iranian and Iraqi officials about what happened over 13 nervous days - namely that the decision to seize the Britons was taken locally, and was not part of a grander scheme cooked up in Tehran.
"My best guess is that this was a local incident which became an international incident," said one British source closely involved in the crisis.
I'm not sure anyone didn't guess this before, particularly when Ahmadinejad was nowhere to be seen in the first few days. It was the Iranian hostage crisis all over again.
Except, of course, we wouldn't have allowed our allies to twist in the wind like they let us back then. But hey, if our country was dumb enough to have Jimmy Carter as president, we probably deserved for them not to get involved.
The usual useful idiots prove once again that they can't read.
From today's Guardian, we learn that the Bush administration wanted to escalate tensions with Iran after the 15 British sailors were seized two weeks ago. How predictable; for Bush and Cheney, any resort to diplomacy is a token of weakness. Bush offered to use American naval forces provocatively in order to threaten Iran.
Instead, Blair told them to stay out of it. He also asked Bush & Co. to tone down the rhetoric while Britain tried to free the hostages without provoking a war.
Hence Bush's closest ally in his Middle East fiasco has concluded that he cannot be trusted with any sensitive issues. No wonder that the success of the British negotiations has sent Bush's apologists into orbit. It's an insult to everything their guy stands for, not to give war a chance.
Obviously the KOS nuts don't understand that offering someone your muscle and them deciding to use other tactics first isn't "conclud(ing) that (Bush) cannot be trusted with any sensitive issues." It means the British government needed to save face by taking the lead in the conflict. President Bush offered Tony Blair the thing the British have little of anymore: military might. The dismantling of the British navy has been going on for several years now. The navy that once "ruled the waves," will be little more than the Coast Guard shortly. Don't think that has been lost on anyone, either.
Michael P.F. van der Galiën says Bush's response was "exactly the response the U.S. should have given," which is what I think, too. That the British wanted the Americans to stay in the background while they tried to negotiate is a no-brainer. I doubt we would want other countries taking the lead for us.
But that doesn't mean the Iranians didn't know we were the 800-lb. gorilla in the room. Which is why Ahmadinejad backed down so quickly.
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