Iranian hostage responses

The European Union and the United Nations have both failed to support Britain fully, following Iran's recent act of war. The wording of a UN resolution was watered down, and the EU refused to agree to impose full economic sanctions against Iran. In contrast, the Anglosphere has thrown its weight fully behind our cause, while at the same time wondering why Britain seems to have become so weak that Marines now get taken captive without a shot being fired.

The Canadian Coalition for Democracies has just put forward a suggested plan of action for Canada:

The Stephen Harper government has adopted leadership positions before in foreign affairs, and it is in our interests to do so again. The weak response of Europe, even in the face of 15 Europeans being abducted, coerced and paraded before the media in contravention of the Geneva Convention, can be offset by a strong response from Canada, Great Britain, Australia and the United States. As a leader in dealing with the most significant threat to our future, Canada can undertake some practical steps:

- End Canada's $300 million in imports from Iran;
- Prohibit Canadian investment in Iran, especially in its oil and gas sector;
- Ban Iranian banks and investors from Canada's financial markets;
- Encourage Canadian investors and public sector fund managers to divest from companies doing business with Iran;
- Freeze all Canadian assets of Iranian officials including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani, and their families;
- Impose a travel ban on all Iranian officials and their families;
- Provide material and financial support for those seeking to free Iranian political prisoners by assisting in publicizing their names and the abuses of the regime;
- Continue to provide sanctuary to those Iranians fleeing the regime's abuses.
- Identify and deport any remaining Iranian diplomats in Canada who spy on local Iranians in order to threaten their families in Iran, a charge frequently made by Iranian students and dissidents in Canada.

Prime Minister Harper will be meeting on Monday April 9th at Vimy Ridge with world leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II, to commemorate the 90th anniversary of that battle. It is an opportunity for Canada to let the people of Britain know that we stand behind them in deed as well as word, as we would hope they would do for us if those sailors had been Canadian.

Unless Iran is finally made to understand that it will pay a price for its crimes, the escalation will continue and we will have many more Vimy Ridges to commemorate.

Meanwhile, last weekend saw two separate demonstrations outside the Iranian Embassy in London. On Saturday, the 910 Group, which also operates something called the Centre for Vigilant Freedom, held a small rally of perhaps half a dozen people, and then on Sunday there was a very slightly larger turnout for the new Free the Navy 15 campaign. FTN15 is turning out again today, Wednesday, and seems likely to get some momentum. The 910 Group claims to be non-partisan and to have support from all walks of life, but organisations that link to sites like "Foehammer" and "Frontline America" are going to be unattractive to many. Here's Frontline America's programme:

We must effect four steps to secure our civilization.
1. We must wake up as a people to face the peril of our situation.
2. We must topple all regimes that refuse to hunt the jihadists.
3. We must kill, capture, or silence the jihadists everywhere.
4. We must eradicate Islam that demands the blood of our people.

I've met some people involved with 910 and they include disgruntled conservatives and disgruntled Guardian readers, but the fringes of their group condemn it forever to the sidelines. I'm deliberately not linking to some of these sites, but there is one with a tagline of "White, American and Proud". If they are happy to be in that sort of company, they deserve the sidelines.

FTN15 is much more promising. It seems to be organised by Mark Wallace, who is the Freedom Association's campaign manager. The Freedom Association has shaken off links with the far right, a quarter of a century ago, to become one of the leading libertarian campaign groups in the country. I've also met Mark Wallace and, though I haven't had any contact with him about this, I know he is a very shrewd operator who will conduct a savvy campaign and will ensure it remains single-issue and non-partisan.

But why stand outside the Iranian Embassy? We haven't been let down by Iran - it's a criminal regime running a failed state that has always taken hostages. It's something to expect from them.

No, we've been let down by France, by Germany, by Russia. The Iranians in Kensington will be watching the demonstrations with glee. I'm not sure the French would be so sanguine about demonstrations that drew attention to their feckless self-regard. The EU is Iran's biggest trading partner, and economic sanctions could really bite; France and Germany vetoed them.

Incidentally, this raises a broader question. Economic sanctions and boycotts helped bring about change in South Africa. Was apartheid really worse than the treatment of women and minorities in Iran and Saudi Arabia? If sanctions were justified - permanent, long lived sanctions aimed at regime change - in the case of South Africa, why are they not in the case of the extremist Muslim world?

Last year there was a Muslim boycott of Danish exports, and a counter-boycott in the West. The boycott was official in many places and well organised. Chains of stores simply withdrew Danish produce (including, shamefully, the French giant Carrefour). The counter-boycott was unofficial and much less well organised. The result: Danish exports rose.

Instead of indulging in displays of impotent anger outside the Iranian Embassy, we should be organising things that will bite the regime in Teheran, and doing so by playing to our strengths.

Our strengths are economic.



Free the Navy 15 are rallying again this evening at 6:45pm. Details on their blog.