Call it déjà vu, Lebanon style. “Iran kidnaps Marines at gunpoint,” declares the Belfast Telegraph, as if the Royal Marines captured on the Iranian side of the Shatt al-Arab waterway were grabbed while on an afternoon stroll in Seaforth. Terri Judd, aboard HMS Cornwall in the Persian Gulf, tells us the marines were “overpowered and taken into Iranian national waters,” same as Hezbollah attacked Israel last summer, capturing two Israeli soldiers, sparking Israel’s attack on the country. However, as we know, the soldiers were captured at the village of Aitaa al-Chaab, well inside Lebanon’s southern territory, a fact initially reported by at least a few members of the corporate media, that is until they were handed the approved script.

“Last night, the British and Iranian governments were locked in a diplomatic row as the dispute escalated. Britain protested that its personnel had been ‘kidnapped’ while Iranian state television insisted that UK service members were ‘under arrest’ for entering Iranian territory,” the Belfast Telegraph continues. “The capture has inflamed an already tense situation between the two countries over accusations that Iran is fomenting the insurgency in Iraq while defying the world over its suspected nuclear weapons program.”

Of course, for the neocons, these developments are welcome, as they are on a fishing expedition for a pretense, a refashioned Gulf of Tonkin event, and they may as well troll the disputed waters of the Shatt al-Arab in search of it. In fact, the Associated Press more or less admits this is the case, as it reports the United States and Britain “have bolstered their presence in the Persian Gulf… to confront an ascendant Iran flexing its muscles throughout the region and developing nuclear technology.” It should not be considered a coincidence the Brits were “kidnapped” prior to a U.N. Security Council meeting to impose sanctions of Iran for exercising its rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. “The developments coincide with United Nations deliberations over possible sanctions against Iran over its refusal to abandon work on producing enriched uranium needed to build a bomb,” reports the Scotsman, following the neocon script diligently, as it should be assumed the Iranians will nuke Israel the moment they patch together a crude bomb or two.

According to the CIA’s favorite newspaper, the Washington Post, the Brits want an “explanation over sailors’ seizure, although no such “explanation” is apparently required by the United States, as it has sent special forces into Iran, including Mujahedin-e-Khalq cult members based at Camp Ashraf, near Baghdad, a fact reported by the Guardian back in 2005. “They are Baluchistan, a Sunni stronghold, and Khuzestan, a Shia region where a series of recent attacks has left many dead and hundreds injured in the last three months,” Larisa Alexandrovna reported last April. “America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear program,” the neocon Sunday Telegraph reported last month. “The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime… Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA’s classified budget.” Gen. Michael V. Hayden, director of the CIA, has yet to be called on the carpet.

Meanwhile, the incident is left to roil and baste in the corporate media, an obedient tool for neocons and neolibs alike. “British officials were wary of drawing the conclusion that the incident was a deliberate provocation by Tehran, which denies Western accusations that its nuclear energy program is a front for developing atomic arms,” the Post continues. As usual, in Bushzarro world, up is down and black is white. In fact, the Brits appear to be guilty of staging “a deliberate provocation” by taunting the Iranians, who are rightfully paranoid of having their cities and populace shock and awed by the neocons.