Tit for Tat

According to the British newspaper, the Independent, the Iranian kidnapping of the British sailors was the result of a "botched" US raid in which five Iranian "officials" were captured in the Kurdish town of Irbil in Iraq.

The Independent claims that the US "botched" the raid because the US was hoping to capture two more senior Iranian officials who where traveling in Iraq on official business. The Independent then goes into some detail about the itineraries of the Iranians that the US raid did not capture, who met with the President of Iraq and with the President of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, and who, because of those meetings, could be thought of as having quasi-diplomatic status.

Thus the US raid which captured five Iranian intelligence operatives operating in Iraq becomes, as the Independent tells it, a botched attempt to snatch Iranian diplomats -- another Bush outrage to which the poor, misunderstood Iranians are only responding.

Hmmmmm. Could be, I suppose. Maybe we were trying to be wicked but messed up, doing something prudent and sensible instead. But even then we shouldn't let Iran off the hook. I mean, how do we know that they weren't operating on bad intelligence, too...