NORMAL LIFE: Need For Unity

The recent events in Iran, where 15 British navy personnel were seized for allegedly entering Iranian waters (read here) have got me thinking just how troublesome the Middle East is. Have we made it that way? Or are they just hell bent on causing mayhem?

Since the tragedy of September 11th, it's debatable whether or not the world has become a safer place. After hunting down the Taleban in Afghanistan and the removal of the Sadam Hussein regime in Iraq (both lead largely by Western forces), it shocked me when Israel started bombing the Lebanon to smithereens last summer.

The BBC website has been a useful source of information regarding the most recent Iranian affair. When Iran refused to quit developing its nuclear knowledge, part of me thought why should they just because we say so? As a compromise, it was recommend that we 'observe'. To this, Iran objected vehemently and, since then, it has been so obvious that Iran is up to something.

One reader posted a comment on the BBC News website: "Iran wants to take a long, good, hard look at itself as to how this [the seizing of UK navy personnel] will look to the rest of the world". Hear, hear! Over lunch at work the other day, I explained to one colleague that even if we were in Iranian waters, fifteen people on board doesn't exactly constitute a threat. Furthermore, the Iranians should be grateful that there weren't 300 navy personnel onboard as we would have bombed them to bits.

One thing I am pleased about, however, is in the unity (for a change) demonstrated by the European Union and the United Nations over the matter. Since September 11th, there has been a need for a new kind of unity. With growing knowledge of the world in this Communication/Information Age, an awareness of the evils that lie within have been revealed. The West isn't ideal, but I sense that the East is constantly provoking a war of never-before-seen proportions.

Together, in Europe, we can continue to enjoy the relative peace we have enjoyed for the last fifty years. Let the United States continue with its Axis of Evil 'project'; it has done nothing but destabilise the Middle East. The UK's future lies with Europe, not with the Hamburger loving, gas guzzling cousing on the other side of the Atlantic.