Hitler said, ‘I know my enemies. I met them at Munich. They are little worms.’ He turned out to be wrong, thank goodness, but the impression that his enemies gave him emboldened him for war. The Iranians must now think that we, the British, are little worms; and on the basis of our conduct in the last ten days, they would be right. They are emboldened too: no sooner had they let our captives go than they proudly announced their membership of the nuclear club. Here are some reasons why the fiasco of the ‘Shatt-al-Arab 15’ is even worse than the critics have said.
1. Comradeship. The Sunday Times quoted one of the captives, Dean Harris, an acting sergeant in the Royal Marines, asking for £70,000: ‘I know Faye has been offered a heck more than that. I am worth it because I was one of only two that didn’t crack.’
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