Britons were celebrating the 200 anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade by England and the 25th anniversary of the victory of Margaret Thatcher's troops in the Falkland Islands, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad just bust in with the capture of 15 UK sailors on a U.N. mission in international waters. This cried for an analysis and historical perspective. It came, predictably and learnedly, from Niall Ferguson, a good friend, a frequent contributor to TNR (see, for example, here, and here) and a professor at Harvard, in a longish op-ed in the Sunday Telegraph. He is, with Simon Schama and Michael Oren, one of the great narrative historians of our time. The latter two are also frequent contributors to TNR (for example, here and here). Anyway, Ferguson brings us a quick but not superficial study in the past, back to the Barbary Corsairs, "the Moroccan and Algerian raiders who infested the Western Mediterranean" in the early 19th century. (Oren has shown in his new book, Power, Faith and Fantasy, how these impoundments of ships and sailors brought Thomas Jefferson to understand the need for a large and moveable American force in the world.) In any case, Britain once ruled the seas. It doesn't anymore. But it is now hindered not only by intrinsic and practical limitations. It is hindered also by many Britons' exquisite sense of having wounded the Iranians and the Muslims so that a rough response to this 21st century piracy is considered impolite. Well, that's just the point. As Ferguson makes clear in his spirited comparison between Tony Blair and Mrs. Thatcher. I don't recall seeing anybody commenting--so I will--on the fact that in its piracy at the Shat al-Arab, Iran has been following the behavioral patterns not of states but of terrorist gangs: the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah across the Lebanese border in Israel, the abducting of another Israeli soldier from inside Israel near the Gaza frontier, the kidnapping of a B.B.C. journalist in Gaza, the rounding up of wholly innocent pawns in Iraq, etc., etc. Iran is now a pirate state, a pirate state on the loose.