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Another Profile in Courage
Britain's continuing dishonor.
Posted: Tuesday, April 17, 2007


ARTICLE
National Review Online  
Publication Date: April 17, 2007

London   --   In a halting, contradictory, and ultimately languid speech to the House of Commons Monday, British Defense Secretary Des Browne seemed to incarnate the nation's image of prevarication and weakness following the Iranian seizure and release of 15 of its Royal Navy seamen.

Browne defended the Navy's order that their boarding party, operating in Iraqi waters, surrender to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in order to avoid a fight "we could not have won." He regretted his own decision to allow the freed crew members to sell their stories to the media, but then seemed to rationalize it. "The circumstances were exceptional, and the pressure on the families was intense." Browne's wing man throughout this fiasco, Home Secretary John Reid, claimed it was "courageous to say we got this wrong."

Opposition leaders aren't buying the Labor party's updated version of Profiles in Courage. Tories' shadow Defense Secretary Liam Fox excoriated the government's actions as a "humiliating fiasco" that has weakened Britain's reputation abroad and sown division among the Armed Forces. "Does no one feel responsible for the shame this episode has brought upon Britain at the hands of the pariah state of Iran?" He all but demanded that Browne resign.

Since the release of the British hostages earlier this month, attention has fixated on the uproar over the soldiers who sold their stories to the tabloid media, and the political fallout of that feckless decision. In the midst of this, most media coverage has zealously avoided the troublesome security issues about Iran and its designs in Iraq. For starters, why didn't Britain learn the lessons from its encounter with Iranian hostage-taking in the Shatt al-Arab waterway in 2004? Browne finally announced the formation of an official inquiry into the matter in yesterday's speech. Yet he also admitted that the Navy has suspended its boarding operations of Iranian vessels. "But this should fool no one," he claimed. "Serious observers do not believe that Iran has emerged from this in a stronger position."

A second issue involves the consequences of Iran's unprovoked seizure of a British crew, operating under a U.N. mandate in Iraqi waters. Their mission, fully supported by the Iraqi government, was to intercept weapons that are fomenting terrorist violence. BBC editors and their counterparts at the Guardian ignore the problem altogether or treat it with stoic agnosticism.

The BBC's background stories, for example, continue to cite the "UK version of events" alongside the "Iranian version of events"  --  as if there is any rational doubt about the location of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessels and the flagrant illegality of their actions.

For his part,  Browne seems to believe that British diplomacy already has achieved all that was required: the safe release of the hostages. "We therefore galvanized the international community to put pressure on the Iranian regime," he told the House. "I am in no doubt that this focused minds at the top of the Iranian regime." Yes, the delusional minds in Tehran are indeed focused  --  contemplating an American ally that apparently lacks the will to protect its own seamen against a lawless, Islamo-fascist regime.

Finally, there's little sign that anyone will press the question of what Iran is doing to support terrorist atrocities in Iraq  --  and what actions must be taken to stop it. On BBC's Radio 4 last week, host John Humphreys asked William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, if the British Navy shouldn't get out of the weapons interdiction business altogether and instead run a customs operation. (Time to get that passport photo updated, Osama.) When Hague reminded him that Iranian vessels are suspected of smuggling deadly arms into Iraq, Humphreys dismissed the charge: "There's precious little evidence of that."

Rather, there's precious little evidence that liberal politicians and their media allies have acquired an adult appreciation for the moral complexities of the post-9/11 world. They seem to reserve their skepticism for those democratic leaders willing to confront the nightmarish intentions of radical Islamists. In a meeting in New York yesterday, Labor secretary Hilary Benn  --  vying for the party's deputy leadership post  --  announced that U.K. officials will stop using the expression "the war on terror" because "we can't win by military means alone."

Those must be soothing words indeed to the terrorist enemies of Britain and America, who have repeatedly declared their desire to obtain the most destructive weapons possible to defeat us. For they are in a war with us, a religious war, a war that they  --  and their allies in Tehran  --  are desperate to win.

--  Joseph Loconte is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a commentator for National Public Radio, and host of the London-based television/Internet program Britain and America.
The Quotable Cromartie
Recent clippings of VP and Senior Fellow. Michael Cromartie

On the new generation of evangelicals: "This new generation has the same convictions but without the edge. They may believe all the same things, but ... they've learned how to present themselves." (Washington Post, 3/6/04)

On politics and religion: Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said that "too often, at least in religiously conservative communities ... there seems to be a concern that we must first of all get the whole culture converted to our theology before you can work for public good." Such a conversion is "not going to happen," he said, so that the question becomes: "How do you find a public grammar, a public language in order to work with people who actually agree with you on the policy but don't agree with you on the theology?" (Washington Post, 2/20/05)

On J. I. Packer's book Knowing God: "Conservative Methodists and Presbyterians and Baptists could all look at it and say, 'This sums it all up for us.'" (Time, 2/7/05)

Michael Cromartie: "The large evangelical populace in this country will cut President Bush a lot of slack. It's the self-appointed leaders in the evangelical movement who won't. I think most evangelicals are more tolerant, and understand political reality more, than the heads of organizations who try to speak for these groups." (The Bakersfield Californian, 11/12/2004)

On politics and religion: "Sure, you have a lot of progressive religious people and, politically, they are going to vote for Kerry. Your problem is that you have a small but significant cohort in the Democratic Party that is really anti-religious and doesn't want to bring religious values and norms into the public arena. That makes it difficult for people from a more moderate to conservative bent religiously to be around the party. They feel excluded and unwanted." (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/10/04)

On politics and religion: "Michael Cromartie, director of the evangelical studies project of the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, said the religious left is preaching to the liberal choir, not religious swing voters. 'They already have this [liberal] vote,' he said. 'This National Council of Churches crowd is not about to vote for Bush, anyway." (Washington Post, 9/4/04, p. B9)

On natural law:  "Michael Cromartie, who directs projects involving evangelicals at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, invoked thinkers like John Calvin and concepts like 'common grace,' all with impeccable REformation credentials. 'A proper appropriation of the natural law tradition,' Mr. Cromartie wrote, 'can provide a public grammar for making appeals in the public arena to people who hold diverse philosophical worldviews and presuppositions." (New York Times, 8/21/04, p. A15)

Michael Cromartie: "The debate evangelicals are having among themselves today is not whether Christians should be concerned for justice, which we should, but what role and how large a role government should have in creating that justice. ... The debate we now need to have is whether certain policies have created more justice for the marginalized, or have they made matters worse? Many eminent social sicentists think the latter." (World, July 3/10, 2004)

Michael Cromartie: "People don't want a President to think that every important decision has a stamp of God's approval and that God is always on his side. ... [Americans] want their Presidents to be pious but not self-righteously so. So there's a paradox, isn't there? A President has to seem to be relying on God's wisdom but not acting like all his decisions are God's decisions." (Time, 6/21/04) 


Mark Noll
What is an "Evangelical"?
A thoughtful look at a complicated notion

Mark Noll, professor at Wheaton College, delivered a lecture on "Understanding American Evangelicals" at EPPC's 2003 conference in Key West, Florida. He provides the history of evangelical movements, discusses the number of American evangelicals, and takes the measure of evangelical hymns. An elegant and eloquent presentation for those curious about what it means to be an evangelical. 


 The views expressed by EPPC scholars in their work are their individual views only and are not to be imputed to EPPC as an institution.     
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