DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - U.K./IRAN: BOTH SIDES CLAIM 'VICTORY'

UK soldiers release: Both sides claim victory

London - After a storm of angry charges, propaganda and bellicose rhetoric, it seems quiet diplomacy solved Britain's stand-off with Iran, leaving both sides able to claim victory, commentators said Thursday.

The 15 British Royal Navy personnel were flown back to London from Tehran on Thursday after nearly two weeks of bitter wrangling between the two capitals.

Now British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are left to assess who came out best from the spat and what turned events towards a solution.British newspapers said for all the positioning, it was direct talks Tuesday between Blair's chief foreign policy advisor Nigel Sheinwald and Iran's top security official Ali Larijani that broke the deadlock.

"The best lesson to take away from this affair was how rapidly it was resolved once empowered officials on both sides talked directly," the Financial Times newspaper said.

Officially, Blair stated Wednesday that there had been no negotiations to secure the release.

But the press suspected a bit of back-stage horse-trading concerning Iranians held in Iraq.

The release Tuesday of an Iranian diplomat kidnapped two months ago in Baghdad, and the promise of consular access to five Iranian officials seized by US forces in Iraq in January could have been enough to convince Iran.

Britain initially favoured quiet diplomacy after the sailors were seized in the northern Gulf on March 23 - the day before a UN Security Council vote which, as predicted, slapped further sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear programme.

But Britain's requests for diplomatic progess - explanations, consular access to the personnel, demands to know their whereabouts - fell on deaf ears as Iran interrogated the sailors on their "illegal entry" into Iranian waters.

London's patience snapped and on March 28, Britain changed tack, issuing a military breakdown of its version of events as Blair said it was time to get tough with Tehran and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett blasted Iran's actions.

Iran swiftly responded with the first of a string of video "confessions" of trespassing and letters from the only female sailor.Britain took the matter to the UN Security Council, infuriating Iran while failing to secure the harsh statement it wanted. However, Britain's European Union partners rallied round.

...

and

Iran comes out a winner in standoff
Gains respect in global community; nukes take back seat for a while.
By SALLY BUZBEE

With Iran's decision to free 15 British sailors Wednesday, Tehran emerged with a measure of strength from its standoff with Britain -- deflecting attention from its disputed nuclear program and proving it can cause trouble in the Middle East when it chooses.

Yet the country's hard-line leaders also shied away from all-out confrontation with the West -- backing down once they had flexed their power, apparently worried they might go too far.

In that way, the standoff proved one thing above all else: Iran's internal decision-making process remains largely mysterious to the West.

Split between ultra-hard-line and more moderate factions, the Iranian regime moved back and forth on the seizures, sending mixed messages until suddenly, startlingly, announcing Wednesday that it would free the 15 sailors.

"The thing ... about Iran's negotiating strategy is that they say, 'No, no, no' until it suddenly becomes 'Yes,"' said Patrick Clawson, deputy director for research at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Whether that is a sign of internal dissent in Iran or finely honed, clever brinkmanship, Iran clearly gained some respect from the dispute -- at least enough to make the West cautious that the Islamic regime would be willing to dive into such a tussle again.

"It allowed the Iranians to demonstrate that they can't be trifled with. They have a capacity to take action, and that will undoubtedly make people more careful," said James Dobbins, a former Bush administration envoy to Afghanistan who now heads military analysis for the RAND Corp. think tank in the United States.

That could affect the aggressiveness of future British navy patrols in the Persian Gulf near Iraq. It also could affect any future actions by U.S. military forces inside Iraq.

...

and

Why did Iran blink?
Ahmadinejad spins the release of hostages, but it's unclear exactly what happened

It is certainly a relief that the Iranian regime has decided to release the 15 British sailors and marines who were seized by Iranian Revolutionary Guards forces March 23. It would have been preferable if the regime had immediately released the British servicepeople, who, if they ventured into Iranian waters, almost certainly did so inadvertently. But this outcome is preferable to what would have been increasing pressure for Britain, or perhaps even the United States, to put more pressure on the Iranian regime through military and paramilitary means.

The entire incident, however, leaves us with more questions than answers.

What was the motivation for Iranian forces to seize the British sailors and marines in the first place? Does the resolution of the incident suggest a split within the Iranian regime, between hard-liners led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and pragmatists, led by Ali Larijani, head of the Supreme National Security Council and representing the interests of most of the mullahs? Or are any splits merely superficial?

Britain's Sky News said its sources revealed that Qatar and Syria were instrumental in bringing about a resolution. What interest would those two countries have in common, and what leverage, if any, would they have over Iran? Could Saudi Arabia, which has been increasingly active diplomatically in the region, have played a role?

Unfortunately, for all his sometimes unpredictable and inflammatory hard-line tendencies, and whether or not he was pressured into releasing the hostages, Ahmadinejad played the resolution of this crisis shrewdly and expansively. He referred to the release as a "gift" to the British people while insisting that Iran had been deeply wronged by an incursion into territorial waters.

As Robert Hunter, a senior adviser at the RAND Corp. and former U.S. ambassador to NATO told us, whatever the truth of the matter, "he made Iran sound like the civilized party in this affair."

Mr. Hunter believes that Great Britain played things just about right, consistently denying it had done anything wrong, refusing in public to negotiate, exercising patience rather than hurling threats, and (probably) arranging for the release of an Iranian diplomat who had been captured in Iraq.

As Mr. Hunter also suggested, now is a good time to step back and think seriously about our priorities in the region. The United States is likely to be a permanent presence in the Persian Gulf, and Iran will inevitably be a regional power. We need to start talking to determine how those interests, some of which will coincide and some of which will conflict, can be worked through without warfare or nuclear weapons.


Pertinent Links:

1) UK soldiers release: Both sides claim victory

2) Iran comes out a winner in standoff

3) Why did Iran blink?