Thank God we live in the 21st century and not the 19th. If this incident in the Gulf had happened in an earlier age we would now be at war with Iran. Instead the crisis has been resolved peacefully.

That does not mean that we should be grateful to the Iranians or that we should let this matter drop. What the Iranian Revolutionary Guards did to our sailors and Marines is outrageous.

To be attacked for the second time by a country we are not even at war with is completely unacceptable. I believe that we were too weak and pusillanimous in our actions after the first incident in 2004 (when eight sailors and Marines were seized and held for three days by the Iranians).

The boats and equipment that were taken should be returned immediately. We should not forget that this did not happen after the 2004 incident.

This time we have to make sure that it never happens again. We should pursue the matter with the utmost vigour, if necessary taking it to an international court.

I have absolutely no doubt that this incident happened well within Iraqi waters. Although some people argue the waters are disputed, there is a convention that is respected by all sides. When one looked at the Iranian charts in those pictures that were shown, the red demarcation line, was exactly the one we work to. In addition we have a buffer zone to make sure we do not stray into Iranian waters.

We are operating in the northern Gulf, in Iraqi waters and under a United Nations mandate as part of a coalition with the Americans and Australians that is seeking to maintain security in a volatile area by fighting terrorism and smuggling. We will now have to review our rules of engagement.

Unless we can be satisfied that this will never happen again it could change the whole nature of our naval deployment in the area. We want to avoid being forced into a position where we have to deploy more ships and aircraft and complicate the situation. It would make operations far more dangerous for everybody.

With our naval forces we could destroy the entire Iranian surface fleet in ten days. But what would this accomplish? Can you imagine what would have been the consequences if we had sunk the Iranian ships that attacked us?

The Ministry of Defence and the Royal Navy will now be looking very closely at the events of the past two weeks to see what lessons we can learn. The debriefing of the naval personnel will be critical in understanding what happened and how to avoid future incidents.

There is criticism of the way that the hostages — for that is what they were — behaved in captivity. Some people will feel that they went over the top in the last televised interviews in Tehran.

My overall view is that our servicemen acted reasonably and came across very well. Unless debriefing shows otherwise, I believe that they were a credit to our country.

My belief is that when our men and women are taken hostage they should do what is necessary to get on with their captors and say what is necessary to secure their freedom. We all know that the statements they made were meaningless.

As long as they did not compromise operations, endanger the lives of other servicemen or threaten the safety of our country, it does not matter what they said so long as they are freed unharmed.

That said, there will be an argument for better training for all our forces in the event that they are captured and interrogated. At the moment this training is provided only to servicemen most at risk of capture. After this incident there is a good case to be made for all men and women on active service to have some training.

Hopefully that training will never be put into practice. We must never allow something like this to happen again.

Admiral Sir Alan West was the First Sea Lord, 2002-06

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