Iran to Britain: Take, oh, take me as I am

Why is it that at the relatively young age of 25 I notice that history is already repeating itself? Why does everything seem so gosh-darn similar these days?

I'm thinking specifically about the 'resolved' dispute over the captured British sailors. All credible sources claim that the sailors remained within Iraqi waters during the now infamous operation. The sailors themselves confirm as much, even stating that it was apparent that the Iranians who arrived and began to act aggressively, were clearly following a preconceived plan. And then we have the confirmation that dispite the blatant violations of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war, ie the televising of the prisoners and the forced public interviews, the Iranians even went so far as to commit pyschological torture, ie telling each individual prisoner that they were the 'last one' and that the others were already executed.

And with this evidence, what is the response of Britain, the UN, and the Western media?

*crickets chirping*

I hate to violate Godwin's Law (the one that states that any internet argument is made forfeit by referencing the Nazis), but doesn't all this seem very, in fact, eeriely similar to the Daladier-Chamberlain policy of appeasement? (oh, maybe I haven't violated Godwin's yet after all, technically) In those days, the West was as war weary and hesitant as we are now, just with more reasonable excuses like ecomonic collapse, crop failures and World War I. The leaders, not wanting to waste any political capital on another unpopular and unwanted conflict, sought the persue 'soft war' via the ivory corridors of international diplomacy. It's good to remember that international diplomacy in the 1930's was about as bogus as it is now: The League of Nations, the precursor to the UN, was just as impotent, corrupt, and ineffectual as its modern day embodiment. Nevertheless, in the face of outright persecution and authentically 'illegal' wars (who makes wars legal by the way?) , the leaders of the West of the 1930s opted to do exactly what the leaders of the West of the 2000s chose. Nothing.