What's the best way to respond to Iran?

Well I am not a war-seeker either, and would normally try everything to avoid violence, and conflict, but I'm afraid there may not be any other solution here now. I was reading in the newspaper today about the treatment of the 15 kidnapped Brits. They were tortured, and treated very badly, and especially bad treatment was meted out to the one female serviceperson, and the youngest lad there. They were not in Iranian waters - it was a deliberate act of agression to attack them, and to try and cause trouble for Britain and our allies. People like this should not be allowed to get away with it in my opinion.

I think that we should use diplomacy, but to be honest that is very difficult when dealing with nations such as Iran. We have to remember that our respective media outlets and respective Governments paint pictures of other nations that we begin to accept through a sort of osmosis effect. This means that generations of people in Iran for example, will have been brought up to believe in certain things, in certain ways of life and that is where the crux of the matter is in my opinion. We need to re-educate the people, the everyday people of countries like Iran, like Israel, and Palestine, like Iraq and Afganestan, like China and North Korea. No we should not educate them in the ways that suggest western thinking is the best, right and only way forward, but we should help them in some way to respect that democracy and freedoms are better than tirany and dictatorships. It is only once the populus as a whole changes their views and begins to understand, respect other people's opinions that we will see a more stable political environment for diplomacy to work. I would be a much better man if I could suggest serious ways to make this happen, I don't think I can, but I would only suggest military force as the very last option. No matter what people say, military action is never clean, it's never quick and it's never without pain. It is shocking just how much we are all influenced by what we are told by the media, by people in power. What we need is to educate people to question things, to open up debate, to push for democracy, tolerance, understanding and dare I say it, to minimise how much religion plays into our daily politics. I am not saying there is anything wrong with religion at all, but I am saying it does not sit comfortably within politics and that has been demonstrated throughout history.

In my country, the news featured this on tv in a very limited sense. I cannot delve into this subject matter in depth. But as always, it will be best to explore all diplomatic ways to end this misunderstanding rather than taking up arms. Wars are always costly and devastations coming from them are always beyond measure. I can understand why the US ran out of patience in Iraq. There was a record that Iraq had established for herself when she initiated those attacks in those neighboring countries many years ago (Operation Desert Storm, I believe). But this time, to be exercising more patience with Iran will be doing everyone much good.

an attack on iran this is the only thing left to do diplomacy does not help in certain situations and believe me it was done.. the kidnapping of the soldiers was iran's way to say to the world that they are not affraid and can do anything when they want to i do not see another way right now and i am definatly not a war seeker can you see any other solution to this? remember diplomacy is not one of them..we already tried that..

I think diplomacy and seeking a true understanding of their culture is the only way to repair our relations with Iran and by extension Syria. If we have learned only one thing from Iraq it is that a military offensive is not productive. Knowing this any type of hostile posturing will only be viewed as an idle threat and work against us. We need to understand their motivations before any kind of compromise can be reached and referring to them simply as "terrorists" and refusing to meet is only hurting us in the long run.