Iran's act of war?
 

So, 15 British soldiers were taken by Iran because Iran says that they were in Iranian water.

Link:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/...257281,00.html

This could be seen as an act of war, because typically if you find soldiers in your country, you would escort them out (under guard, but still, escort), not hold them hostage.

Thoughts, opinions?

My thoughts are that this could be the start of a few bombing runs around Tehran. Here's hoping it doesn't.

They're probably being detained for questioning, but if things hold true to form, they'll be released like all the other times. It's hardly an act of war, since any nation has the right to detain any vessel and any individuals on board found within their waters. They're also not being held 'hostage' just for being detained as a security precaution and procedure for investigation. It's the same with almost any organized military.

Last time this happened, we wern't talking somewhat serious about war with Iran, so...

Then again, 2004 wasn't that long ago.

And the main thing was that the Iranians said they were in their water, the Brits were saying they were in Iraqi water... yadah yadah

(then again, most of this I heard on the radio while driving home, so I may have misheard/not paid attention to parts. =P)

Problem with that story. It totally leaves out the part that it wasn't the Iran Navy that took the soldiers into custody, but rather, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Which from the reports I heard, is pretty independent of the Iran government, plus they traffic in a ton of smuggling to fund their operations.

See the TIME article.

SWB

Cobra Commander is at it again!

This doesn't look good. It's one thing to have a secular leader, but a religious leader... the Ayatullah might want to stir shit up and start something big.

Sort of depends on the context under which they were sent into the country. There've been indications that US troops have been conducting operations inside Iran for a while now. Considering the administration's rhetoric regarding Iran for the last half a year or so it wouldn't surprise me if they were trying to provoke a reaction exactly like the above.

Actually, Ayatollah Khamenei tends to, at least publicly, take a more moderate stance on foreign policy than one would expect, though there's very possibly a fair amount of hypocrisy that goes with any public relations strategy.

Still, I trust him to handle this matter better than Iran's President, Mahmoud "I'm Batshit Insane" Ahmadinejad.

Khamenei actually chastised Ahmadinejad for his anti-Western rhetoric. I doubt this will end in war, but it doesn't look good. I'm just glad these were British soldiers, because it's not Blair who's looking for a war with Iran.

It's happened before, and the climate was still pretty hot with Iran in 2004, just not as hot as now. Nothing came of it before, I don't think anything will come of it now. It'll take something else to set off a war with them.

Why would they do this? Don't they know how hard we're working to keep sir bombsalot from pressing the big red button that says nuke? I know the sailor's are English, but the English aren't pansies like the French, they are mroe than willing to march ides on Irans ass. And if England does go to war with Iran we'll get pulled into it since we owe them for following us into our insane campaign in Iraq.