While the release of that female British sailor is being delayed until the British government changes its "incorrect attitude" (which I believe to mean that they have been unwilling to submit to Iranian demands), the debate goes on.

Gerard Baker believes the British government is doing the right thing, so far.

Timothy Garton Ash says if the Europeans were really united, as their elites so fervently desire, then perhaps they could collectively do something to help force the release of the captive Europeans. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for such an outcome if I were him. I expect that the attitude of many Europeans is that shared by most of the commenters who posted at the end of the Ash article, which is that the British sailors and Marines deserve their fate for being part of an immoral and illegal U.S./British action in Iraq. Of course, in that view they have an ally in the King of Saudi Arabia.

Fred Thompson says there is a link between this hostage incident and the on-going mothballing of the once proud Royal Navy.

In Iraq, continued sectarian violence will, I believe, maintain the domestic political pressure that will make a U.S. withdrawal almost certain by 2009 (as I suspect the Democrats will do well in November of 2008). Victor Davis Hanson says a withdrawal from Iraq will not end the war. He is right. While it will end our involvement in Iraq, the wider war will go on, and it will get bigger, not smaller, as a consequence of that withdrawal.

Clifford May, in describing the life struggle of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, not only against the Islamists, but also against their apologists in the West, gives us a clue as to why the West is losing the war, so far.

In an unrelated note, some very deserving heroes finally get their due in Washington.