Patricia Hewitt, Health Secretary in Tony Blair's cabinet, was upset by pictures broadcast from Iran of the 15 captive British sailors and marines, reported Christopher Booker of the Sunday Telegraph. "It was deplorable that the woman hostage should be shown smoking," Ms. Hewitt said.  "This sends completely the wrong message to our young people." When liberals cower when petty thugs make threats (which is pretty much whenever petty thugs make threats), conservatives,  understandably, suspect them of cowardice.  But Ms. Hewitt's bizarre response to her country's humiliation suggest something else is at work. The most remarkable aspect of this most recent Iranian hostage crisis is the lengths to which so many prominent people in the West have gone to make excuses for inexcusable Iranian behavior.

If you knew how to make life better for your fellow Americans, would you? The political class in Washington constantly claims it "cares about you," but when it comes to policy many do just the opposite. Most people understand the Republicans messed up by allowing nondefense spending to grow faster than the economy. The Democrats ran against the irresponsible Republicans by claiming they would be "fiscally responsible." So, rather than present a budget that would reduce the growth rate of domestic spending, they have just proposed one that would increase it, even above Republican proposals, and require increases in taxes. You can only wonder if they are even more brain dead than the Republicans.

Though The Poison That Is Killing The West has only been up for a short while, there's already a discussion thread on the User Forum.  Dennis Turner, for example, is pessimistic regarding war with Iran (he's pessimistic that there won't be war - I'm optimistic there will be!):

Sad to say, but I don't think we'll take them on. I think we'll issue an ultimatum banning Iranian naval forces from the waterway, but won't shoot when they violate the ban. I hate to be so pessimistic but I see this happening in Israel, where the threat is existential, with Rice pushing for final status issues with the PA while they do not recognize Israel, accept previous agreements, agree to collect weapons and dismantle the terrorist infrastructure, renounce violence, etc.

There's an easy answer for the deep thinkers now torturing themselves for an explanation of the Iranian seizure of 15 British hostages:  The mullahs took the hostages because that is what they do. They've been doing it for a long time. Why now? Because now is when they succeeded in doing it; they've been trying all along. The interesting and important question is what we - yes, we - are going to do about it. You can be sure that the "professionals" in Foggy Bottom and Whitehall are giving learned memos to their leaders in which the word "de-escalate" appears with some frequency, along with "diplomatic solution." I doubt many of them will lose much sleep over their own considerable responsibility for the current unpleasantness, but let's write a footnote to their memos that says: The Brits have labored mightily for many years to prevent the United States from pursuing vigorous action against Iran.