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Iran released yet another piece of propaganda videotape through al-Alam TV with a soundbite by a Royal Marine. This video, ABC's Jim Sciutto pointed out, was edited to make the phrase "apologize" appear, after a jumpcut, next to the phrase "entering your waters without permission" and was accompanied by an unidiomatic letter, indicating dictation by a non-English speaker. CBS' Elizabeth Palmer reckoned that the standoff has been orchestrated by the "hardline elite" Revolutionary Guard, which answers to Iran's religious rulers--so the "provocative" President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "seems to have been sidelined."
After Palmer characterized the London government as "already outraged" and Prime Minister Tony Blair's mood as "incredulous," her colleague David Martin consulted Carter Administration hands from the 1979 Teheran hostage crisis. They found Britain's UN-based diplomacy "heavy-handed" and counterproductive. Jimmy Carter's State Department spokesman Hodding Carter saw Blair making the same mistakes his team made almost 30 years ago, beating his breast and making public declarations. "In a hostage crisis, less is more," Martin mused.
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