We’ve Lost The Authority to Lecture Iran (Independent UK, via CommonDreams)

[marmar]

Published on Friday, March 30, 2007 by The Independent/UK
We’ve Lost The Authority to Lecture Iran
The Iraqi Misadventure has Rendered Britain Too Demoralised to Respond With Serious Force
by Matthew Norman

This is an area of patriotic pride into which the Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad probably seldom stray when they meet for a cup of tea and a pot of finest Iranian beluga, but the birthplace of human rights was Iran. In 539BC, on being crowned king of Babylon, Cyrus the Great read out a declaration now held in the British Museum, and known as the First Charter of Human Rights.

“I announce that I will respect the traditions, customs and religions of the nations of my empire,” recited the Persian monarch. “While I am the King of Iran, Babylon and the nations of the four directions, I will never let anyone oppress any others, and if it occurs I will… penalise the oppressor. I will never let anyone take possession of movable and landed properties of the others by force…”

Nothing specific there about such movables as Royal Navy vessels and their personnel (great warrior, that Cyrus, but no foresight), but you get the gist. That a country invented something important is no guarantee that it will remain a world leader in the field in perpetuity, as close followers of the England football team may have worked out for themselves. But Iran’s regression in human rights terms since Cyrus blazed such a spectacular trail two and a half millennia ago (his insistence that “everyone is free to choose a religion” has a particularly poignant ring; so, alas, does his ambition to “exterminate slavery all over the world”) puts the travails of Steve McClaren in the shade.

Having said that, the reaction to the televising of Faye Turney on Wednesday does seem slightly hysterical. It goes without saying that the seizure of the 15 sailors and marines, whether or not they had strayed into Iranian waters (and it seems certain that they didn’t), is inexcusable on every level. So is the transparent coercion of a frightened young woman to say things she clearly didn’t wish to say.
..(snip)..

Somewhere in all this lies a moral. Gunboat diplomacy is a thing of the past, even if we could find a spare gunboat, and for all the public pretence of “ratcheting up the heat” on the Iranians, they need to be handled with the softest of kid gloves, and cajoled into behaving by a coalition of international trading partners sympathetic to the plight of the sailors. For the days when Britain had the stature, self-confidence and façade of moral authority to play sergeant to the US chief inspector on the global stage are over, and the villains know it.

This is the legacy of Iraq, and if the posturing of the Iranians leaves Mr Blair’s successors in less doubt than ever about that, the ordeal of Leading Seaman Turney and her 14 colleagues will not have been in vain. ........

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/30/204/

[goddess40]

1. and we won't earn the right back unless we punish those that ...

...caused us to lose our standing in the world. Just letting them disappear because their terms are over isn't enough - it means we condone their actions.