When it comes to the deepening crisis in the Middle East, a crisis that is deepening in both its complexity and danger, articles with the word “appeasement” (with all those shopworn, stale and irrelevant evocations of the late, unlamented, Neville Chamberlain) in the title often add little constructive to the debate. Nevertheless, while I may not agree with everything that Melanie Phillips has to say in this piece (in fact, far from it), this comment on one phenomenon that has already struck Mark Steyn is well worth reading

Yet in its response to these events, Britain seems to be in some kind of dreamworld. There is no sense of urgency or crisis, no outpouring of anger. There seems to be virtually no grasp of what is at stake. Some commentators have languidly observed that in another age this would have been regarded as an act of war. What on earth are they talking about? It is an act of war. There can hardly be a more blatant act of aggression than the kidnapping of another country’s military personnel.What clearly does belong to another age is this country’s ability to understand the proper way to respond to an act of war. When his Marines were seized by the Iranians, the commander of HMS Cornwall, Commodore Nick Lambert, did nothing to stop them and later said it was probably all a misunderstanding.

Indeed.

Quite what we should do now on the specifics (retrieving the fifteen hostages) or, more generally with regard to Iran is very, very difficult to say. To argue otherwise is nonsense. While certainly I agree that *nothing* (including, I stress, *serious* efforts, however painful, however tricky, at ‘engagement’ with Teheran) should be off the table, I share the pessimism of Stanley Kurtz so visible on the Corner yesterday as to the likely course of events. It’s a pessimism that can also be seen in these wise words from Nikolas Gvosdev from NRO’s recent symposium, words that bear repeating, and remembering:

What much of discussion on Iran is avoiding is the reality that there is no cost-free solution. No magic airstrike, no deus ex machine covert operation, no “grand bargain,” no display of Security Council unanimity over anemic sanctions, is going to result in an Iran that gives up its nuclear program, ends support for terrorism, stops its pursuit of regional hegemony and creates conditions for the disappearance of the Islamic Republic — and none of the options now on the table can guarantee that there won’t be profound negative consequences for U.S. interests. So let’s stop the posturing and get down to business of telling both our policymakers as well as the American people in general that Iran policy is going to be about deciding what the least bad option is — and let’s have no more illusions about that.

Dead right. And note, in particular, this phrase of Gvosdev’s. There is no “magic airstrike”. Nor, I might add, is there any possibility of a “magic war” fought by troops who do not exist, supported by allies that have long since bolted, and undermined by the political opposition of an American people left thoroughly disillusioned by the bungled Iraq occupation.

For the very immediate future, however, these suggestions by Ms. Phillips seem sensible:

We should change our military rules of engagement. The reason Commodore Lambert did nothing to stop the Marines being taken was because the current rules of engagement forbid action which might escalate a crisis. That must change. We should state publicly that our rules of engagement are now being altered to allow us to defend ourselves.

Indeed. That they have not been up to now has been self-defeating, self-deluding and, ultimately self-destructive. I’d say it was a fitting coda to Tony Blair’s failed premiership, except for the fact that 15 British serviceman are now in the hands of thugs and theocrats and there is nothing that is fitting about that.