The seizure of our soldiers is just another facet of Tony Blair's legacy.

The maritime boundary of the Shat al Arab waterway has been in dispute around the 125-mile-long channel - known in Iran as Arvandrud (Farsi for the Arvand River), since Saddam Hussein - our one-time client regime/proxy - cancelled the 1975 treaty and five years later and invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war.

Our soldiers and their commanders must have known this?

The Iraqi military commander of their country's territorial waters cast doubt on claims the Britons were in Iraqi waters.
"We were informed by Iraqi fishermen after they had returned from sea that there were British gunboats in an area that is out of Iraqi control," Brig. Gen. Hakim Jassim told AP Television News in the southern city of Basra. "We don't know why they were there. And these British troops were besieged by unknown gunboats, I don't know from where," he said.

Fars News, the semi-official news agency of the Iranian Government, set forth these claimed facts:

Britain claims the opposite.

The problem now is our credibility when it comes to our counter claim imminently about to be backed up when we publish the GPS co-ordinates / satellite photographs? Sadly due to the Iraq catastrophe - dodgy dossiers, forged documents relating to yellow cake uranium etc - one is left with maore than a lingering suspicion as to what credibility, if any, will be placed on any evidence we produce in support of our claim by the Iranians, and one can understand that, which is extremely worrying for the families of the soldiers involved.

There is little point in an impotent prime minister posturing about this "moving to a different phase if our troops aren't released" - unless its all part of the George and Tony's Great Game and we are imminently about to see US proxy Israel commence bombing of infrastructure targets - because quite frankly the Iranians are holding all the cards, and our troops.

To answer the question how should we deal with Iran:

What we should not do is allow this to be come part of some "nuclear poker game" of diplomatic brinkmanship and posturing. There are too many wild cards in the deck. Too much possibility exists for a minor skirmish to unleash World War 3.

Our diplomats and Downing Street must remain ever cognisant of Sun Tzu's second rule of war, more so than his first rule - "all war is based on deception" which quite frankly got us into this war - and remember that "its easier to start a war then end one"

This is how we must deal with Iran:

All diplomatic pressures must be brought bear on Israel to sign up to Saudi Arabia's peace plan mooted in today's Telegraph.

We must withdraw our troops from Iraq, acknowledge our war crimes with the guilty going before international courts in accordance with the Nuremberg precedents - we must rebuild what we've destroyed.

Tony Blair and the cabinet members who sat on their complicit hands committing negligent suicide by permitting Blair to mire Britain in this catastrophe should loose their pensions which can be paid in reparations to Iraq - as a lesson to all politicians that they have a responsibility to serve their country, not render it a dis-service.

Britain must take a fresh look at its relationship with Russia - they helped us defeat fascism in 1945 (and have plenty of oil and gas, politicians are quick to spout real politik when it suits them) - and reappraise its special relationship with the US, who also helped us defeat fascism in 1945 - but who have quite frankly behaved like fascists in Iraq 20% of whose population have either been killed, injured, displaced internally or scattered around the world as refugees...

Good God even Hitler only displaced 14% of the populations in the countries he terrorised.

Sling Shot