If You Can Read This, You Are Too Close

I don't know if the Brits were in Iranian waters or not but they must have been close enough for it to be in question - no matter what coordinates both sides are claiming. It's not like the US doesn't have hundreds of detainees being held for various reasons and it's not like the UK isn't occupying an Arab nation - illegally according to most in the Middle East. I don't know what Iran is hoping to gain by this but I don't think when you invade, destroy and occupy what was a sovereign nation, you can accuse another nation, who is actually part of the region, of being out of line.

President Bush on Saturday condemned Iran's seizure of 15 British sailors and marines as "inexcusable behavior" and demanded that the "hostages" be released, weighing in for the first time as the situation escalates into a sustained confrontation with Tehran.

Bush said the sailors had been operating legally in Iraqi territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, as the British have insisted, and not in Iranian waters, and he offered support for British Prime Minister Tony Blair's efforts "to resolve this peacefully." But he rejected any "quid pro quo" trade of Iranians held by U.S. forces in Iraq and ducked a question about whether military force would be justified to free the captured sailors.

"The Iranians must give back the hostages," the president told reporters at a brief question-and-answer session at Camp David after a meeting with the visiting Brazilian president. "They're innocent, they were doing nothing, and they were summarily plucked out of the water. As I say, it's inexcusable behavior."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his own first public comments on the standoff Saturday, accusing Britain of arrogance and complaining that it should not have "shouted in different international councils," according to Iranian state radio. "This is not the legal and logical way" to act, he said in Khuzestan, a province that borders the Persian Gulf.