Brinksmanship in the Straits of Hormuz

The Iranians are using practiced propaganda tactics, having the prisoners make statements admitting to their error in venturing into Iranian water space, and claiming that all Britain has to do is to say they're sorry to end the whole thing. Meanwhile, Britain has simultaneously taken out the rhetorical big guns through surrogates (Bush) while personally speaking more softly and attempting to manage the situation diplomatically.

But former British foreign service officer Craig Murray gives me pause by suggesting that the Brits were lying through their teeth with that map of maritime borders:

The British Government has published a map showing the coordinates of the incident, well within an Iran/Iraq maritime border. The mainstream media and even the blogosphere has bought this hook, line and sinker.

But there are two colossal problems.

A) The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary shown on the British government map does not exist. It has been drawn up by the British Government. Only Iraq and Iran can agree their bilateral boundary, and they never have done this in the Gulf, only inside the Shatt because there it is the land border too. This published boundary is a fake with no legal force.

B) Accepting the British coordinates for the position of both HMS Cornwall and the incident, both were closer to Iranian land than Iraqi land. Go on, print out the map and measure it. Which underlines the point that the British produced border is not a reliable one.

Clearly everyone's trying to make themselves as the forthright ones while dissembling up a storm. And I don't have faith that, even if nobody wants to go to war (debatable), they are skilled enough diplomatically to stop themselves from bungling their way into one, especially if the Texas cowboy gets involved (as he's itching to do, it seems). Meanwhile, to see how a complete maniac would handle this, I give you what I got in my email box from Newt Gingrich (I like to see what the other side is doing):

The Iranians are deeply dependent on imports for gasoline, not for oil. They have one refinery that produces gasoline in Iran . And I think our strategy should be very direct.

There should be a covert operation to sabotage the one refinery. And the United States navy which has overwhelming comparative power should simply stop any tanker that has gasoline.

And we should say on the Iranian dictatorship, within 30 to 45 days you will be walking. If you prefer walking with British hostages and trying to build a nuclear weapon in the dark, then we’re prepared to withhold gasoline for as long as you’re prepared to be stupid.

It doesn’t mean we have to fight a war. We have to calmly and pleasantly eliminate their capacity to get gasoline, do it in a nonviolent manner, and tell them the morning they want be reasonable, they get to drive a car again.

Yes, we just have to calmly and pleasantly pursue a covert military operation to blow up a refinery in a foreign country, expecting no payback.

Gingrich for President! The Peace candidate!