Limited and Specific Justice

New charges are to be brought against Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has the bad luck to hold dual citizenship in a nuclear-armed state with a long and brutal record of violence against other countries and a government run by xenophobic bigots, and also in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested four years ago on charges of espionage and criminal tuition of journalism, the latter of which was blithely confirmed by Britain's joke Foreign Secretary, a certain Boris Johnson. Iran denies using the affair as leverage to induce the master race to pay its debts; and given that the former party of law and order has just formally announced that it does not consider itself bound by international treaties, the Iranians' logic is difficult to fault. In any case, according to the rogue state's national religion a woman who can't make up her mind whether she is a lesser breed can hardly be worth a full ransom; so anyone who imagines that Her Majesty's Government cares what happens to Zaghari-Ratcliffe would be a very mad mullah indeed.