Humiliation

Charles Krauthammer writes his weekly column about the seizure by act of piracy and subsequent release of 15 British sailors and marines by Iran. He reaches the indisputable conclusion that Britain, Europe and the entire notion of the so-called transnational institutions have been humiliated. The European Union and the United Nations were completely and utterly powerless in the whole hostage crisis.

The quid pro quos were not terribly subtle. An Iranian "diplomat" who had been held for two months in Iraq is suddenly released. Equally suddenly, Iran is granted access to the five Iranian "consular officials" — Revolutionary Guards who had been training Shiite militias to kill Americans and others — whom the United States had arrested in Irbil in January. There may have been other concessions we will never hear about. But the salient point is that American action is what got this unstuck.

Where then was the European Union? These 15 hostages, after all, are not just British citizens but, under the laws of Europe, citizens of Europe. Yet the European Union lifted not a finger on their behalf.

Europeans talk all the time about their preference for "soft power" over the brute military force those Neanderthal Americans resort to all the time. What was the soft power available here? Iran's shaky economy is highly dependent on European credits, trade and technology. Britain asked the European Union to threaten to freeze exports, $18 billion a year of commerce. Iran would have lost its No. 1 trading partner. The European Union refused.

Why was nothing done? The reason is simple. Europe functions quite well as a free-trade zone, but as a political entity it is a farce. It remains a collection of sovereign countries with divergent interests. A freeze of economic relations with Europe would have shaken the Iranian economy to the core. "The Dutch," reported the Times of London, "said it was important not to risk a breakdown in dialogue." So much for European solidarity.

Krauthammer asserts that is was American unilateral action that provided the quid pro quo for the release of the hostages. The humiliation of letting Iran get away with an open act of piracy on the high seas is particularly bad for Britain itself, I think. The Royal Navy, along with the US Navy has long been the major enforcer of freedom of the seas and the suppression of piracy. No longer. It is pretty much up to the United States now. But the transnationals will weep, wail and gnash their collective teeth whenever the US attempts to enforce the freedom of the seas. Long on toothless rhetoric, but short on anything approaching actual results, the transnational institutions have revealed their complete helplessness to the world.