The Devil's Blood.

Where is the outrage? Doesn't anyone realize that the Iranians will continue to seize Westerners until they pay the price for doing so? Why, after all these years, hasn't anyone stopped them?
OIL!
No Western leader, not Tony Blair, not George Bush, certainly none of the leaders of 'Eurabia' and certainly no one at the United Nations, dares risk the wrath of the ayatollahs and the possibility that Iran might shut off 20% of the world's oil. If ayatollahs laugh, the despots ruling Tehran must be giggling in their beards. For nearly 2 weeks, the islamic radicals running the world's terrorist states once again had leaders of the civilized world cowering and making backroom deals. But the clerics are confident there will be no consequences, all because of oil.
Other than terrorism, Iran has no ability to project power, yet. Its air force is hardly worthy of the name. The United States has the capacity to eliminate the entire Iranian Navy in less than an hour. But Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's hollow threat, "If the Americans make a wrong move toward Iran, the shipment of energy will definitely face danger," is taken seriously in capitals around the globe, because the United States set the golden standard for how to appease terrorists during the first Iranian hostage crisis way back in 1979. It was total capitulation. And it taught the Iranians a lesson about appeasement they never have forgotten. The ayatollahs in Tehran understand the value Westerners place on human life. They grasp the power of images in our media, and the willingness of an accommodating press to show our citizens in peril. And they know that we will do almost anything to save our countrymen. Been there, done that. So the islamic radicals running Iran have just reaffirmed that by threatening the world economy by threatening the supply of oil, they can be lawless with impunity. They use their oil weapon to fuel their apocalyptic nuclear weapons program, with confidence that no one will act against them because Western governments are afraid of energy supply disruptions.

The Iranians have learned much from our cowardice and appeasement. But they shouldn't be the only ones to learn something from this most recent 'hostage event'.
Now that this most recent hostage incident is over, there should be action against the brutal, corrupt islamic radicals ruling in Tehran. But no, Western leaders will settle for more negotiations, ignoring the need to back up diplomacy with the credible threat of force.
Really, to stop hostage taking as an instrument of Iran's state policy requires freeing the world from the dependency on oil. An alternative to oil would make appeasing radical islamic hostage takers unnecessary.
But then again, the picture of GW and 'friend' says enough...