If your enemy panics, or starts to retreat, it strengthens your position. You know that if you come at them again in strength, they are likely to turn tail or surrender.
It does wonders for morale.
Omar Fadhil from Baghdad thinks that's what's happening with the British sailors being held hostage in Iran.
Think the current Iranian crisis has to do with the 1979 American Embassy take-over? Think again. In 1990 Saddam Hussein, to mollify the Iraqi people arrested, tried and hung Farzad Bazoft, an innocent reporter for The Observer.And it looks like they've got Tony Blair's number.
PJM Baghdad editor Omar Fadhil looks at that incident and sees how the capture of the British sailors may just be the mullahs stealing from Hussein’s playbook.
The Iranian regime wants to tell the Iranian people that ‘See, we arrested their sailors and there’s nothing they can do about it. The west is too scared to attack Iran and that’s why all they can do is to negotiate the problem.’
UPDATE: Argentina smells blood in the water
Awwwwww... Tony, now look what you've started.
Argentina has renewed its claim over the Falkland Islands on the 25th anniversary of invading them - and losing a subsequent war with Britain.LAST WORD: Rewarding bad behaviour
"The Malvinas are Argentine, they always were, they always will be," said Argentine Vice-President Daniel Scioli, using the Spanish name for the islands.
"We're against it", says US.
Asked about reports that Iraq was pushing for the United States to release the five Iranians in Baghdad in the hope of encouraging Iran to free the 15 British sailors and Marines held by Iran, McCormack said the cases were not linked.
"We reject out of hand any attempt to link the two," he said. "To do so only creates a set of incentives that would encourage more such behavior either by the Iranian government or others in unjustly seizing individuals."
Technorati Tags: Iran, Tony Blair, folds like a cheap suit
