Chris

Getting special forces in somewhere covertly is a lot easier than getting them out again after they've made a mess and everyone's looking for them. Especially if they're trying to smuggle a high-profile prisoner out of the country. Also, once NZR resurfaces in the UK, we then have to explain how she got here. That would be an awkward press conference, given that we don't like talking about what the SAS gets up to and we wouldn't want to admit to putting boots on the ground in someone else's sovereign territory.

What's happened to her is disgraceful but it is also typical of Iran's behaviour and sadly I think she was a bit naive to think that she, as an Iranian citizen known to be working for an organisation connected to the BBC, would not attract the attention of her home country's paranoid security apparatus. She was born and grew up in Iran, remains an Iranian citizen and was traveling in and out of the country on her Iranian passport. Despite her having a British husband, a British passport and a British child there's not an awful lot we can do to help her, and military action on her behalf would excessive and unlikely to win international support.