The Brits are saying they were just ordinary sailors training Iraqis, but three small rubber boats out in "appalling weather" with weapons and cameras are just a bit too much of a stretch of the imagination.
<http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5481100>
I wonder who the Brits (or Americans) have to trade to the Iranians to get these guys back.
Combine this with yesterday's Sy Hersh article in the New Yorker about the Israelis preparing the Kurds to destabilize Iran along with the pressure from the IAEA and Iran's leaders may be feeling a bit under siege.
<http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040628fa_fact>
If nothing else, it further destabilizes the situation in the region because it gives the Iranians further reason to distrust the American and British (i.e. enemy forces). Don't forget that on the other side of Iran is Afghanistan, now occupied by American and NATO forces. (At least when the Taliban were in power the Iranians could - and did - threaten an invasion.)
The Iranians have recently changed their codes, so the Allies cannot read their email any more.
At the end of the day though, the American and Brit expeditionary forces will withdraw, but the Iranians live there.
Every time I think that things simply can't get worse, the western alliance leaders commit some further blunder to make the whole scenario incredibly worse.