The boundary in those waters has long been disputed, even between Saddam and Iran. Both sides may have been absolutely convinced the other was in the wrong. Or it may have been an honest error in navigation by one side or the other, I'm a navigator, I know how easily that can happen. Even Ahminajehjad was out of the country and had to go scurrying home.

But that's not the point, no one's denying the Iranians are above this kind of piracy, they did it before with our embassy, remember? Even if the whole operation was masterminded in order to give the Brits a black eye, even if it was planned ahead of time for propaganda purposes, as you imply and as does SteveS above, so what? What the hell was anyone supposed to do about it? What could possibly have been done AFTER the marines were in custody.?

The time to react was when the UK Zodiacs were being approached by the Iranians, surely they were in radio contact with their escort. That frigate should have been at general quarters and steaming towards their people at flank speed, the skipper should have been on the horn requesting backup from the carriers and he should have been firing parachute flares to guide his choppers in to their targets. And his firecontrol radar should have been zeroing in on the Iranians to let them know he meant business. If necessary, the men could have been ordered to resist, knowing help was within sight and on the way. My guess is the UK skipper was waiting for orders that never came simply because no one had anticipated something like this could happen, and there was no plan in place to handle it. Maybe the Iranians had set a trap with the marines as bait, and they were ready to launch a missile at the frigate if it intervened. If I had been the skipper, I would have taken that chance, I would have upped the ante and made the Iranians
take the next step.

But none of that happened, and after the marines were in custody resistance and tough talk are just an armchair game played by amateur strategists. It's to late to play tough when you have no idea where your people are being kept. You raise the bet while you still have cards you can play. After you've folded, it's a little late to start bluffing. I think the Brits, and by extension, us, got off easy this time. Those marines could be in a show trial right now, just in time to underscore Sadr's little Baghdad demonstrations. That's why I think this wasn't planned ahead of time. The Iranians backed down too quickly.