Blair told Bush to zip it, and back off

It's not news that British diplomacy played a key role in resolving the tense situation with Iran over the fate of 15 British sailors taken hostage.

As it turns out, however, according to the UK newspaper The Guardian, Tony Blair and the British were firm in asking the US to keep out of the matter.

According to the article, the US asked the British what they wished done. the list remains top secret, but reportedly one of the options was for the US to provoke the Iranians by buzzing their forward positions near the Iran/Iraq border with war planes.

The British said thanks but not thanks, and even took the step of suggesting the situation could be calmed if the US scaled back offensive efforts in the region. Tony Blair also reportedly asked the US Government to be very careful in its use of rhetoric, since excessive use of it could have ignited a confrontation.

More from The Guardian:

A senior Iranian source with close ties to the Revolutionary Guard, told the Guardian: "If this had been between Iranian and American soldiers it could have been the beginning of an accidental war."

With the crisis now over, a remarkable degree of consensus is emerging among British, Iranian and Iraqi officials about what happened over 13 nervous days - namely that the decision to seize the Britons was taken locally, and was not part of a grander scheme cooked up in Tehran.

"My best guess is that this was a local incident which became an international incident," said one British source closely involved in the crisis.

Pretty amazing.

It's certainly not news that this could (and in my opinion probably would have) led to war between the U.S. and Iran had the hostages been American. I'm still thankful and relieved this situation turned out as it did.

This is just another defeat of sorts for the Bush administration and the second traditionally close ally of the US going its own way.

Naturally, British success at negotiating the release of their hostages has sent Bush apologists into overdrive, which is pretty amusing to see. For those of you keeping score, let's take a look at the Bush scorecard. Of the three nations of Bush's Axis of Evil - Iran, North Korea and Iraq - the first two are being dealt with diplomatically, while Iraq continues to be a financial, political and loss-of-life disaster for the United States, and Iraq.

Last week, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah (Above, with Bush at his Crawford "Ranch") called the US occupation of Iraq "illegal." Not that many people considered Saudi Arabia much of a friend anyway; 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9-11 were Saudi-born. Were it not for the brown gold under Saudi sands, we would almost definitely not consider Saudi Arabia any kind of ally.

I wonder if the Easter Bunny will drop a copy of Diplomacy for Dummies in President Bush's Easter Basket? He could use it.