Iran to release 15 British hostages

April 4, 2007

Finally, some good news out of Iran.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has met with some of the 15 British military personnel held in Iranian custody for almost two weeks, shortly after pardoning the group and vowing to set them free.

Iranian state television showed footage of Ahmadinejad shaking hands, smiling and chatting with the detainees who were dressed in suits. One of them was heard to comment in English: “We are grateful for your forgiveness.”

Ahmadinejad joked with one of them: “What kind of compulsory trip were you on?” He added: “I wish you success.” […]

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the announcement comes “as a profound relief not just to them but to their families that have endured such distress and anxiety over these past 12 days.”

“Throughout we have taken a measured approach: firm but calm, not negotiating but not confronting either,” Blair said in a brief statement to reporters.

Iran was taking a much harder line as recently as last week, so this was obviously a very welcome development.

So, what happened? As the NYT noted, “[T]hroughout the dispute [Iran’s] statements veered between conciliatory and angry, and it was hard to get a clear sense of what the government was thinking — or indeed whether the government was speaking with one voice.”

Perhaps the key big-picture question at this point is what we can learn from the crisis. As dangerous as this showdown was, there are signs of encouragement.

Noah Shachtman explains.

Since the sailors were seized, Iran-hawks have been ready to put the smackdown on Tehran. “An act of war which hands the Coalition the legal right to respond accordingly,” the National Review‘s new military blog thundered. “When will the United Nations act to bring President Ahmadinejad of Iran to trial?” All in all, the event served, in the saber-rattlers’ minds, as “a salutary reminder about their trustworthiness to keep any ‘grand bargain.'”

But now that the affair has been resolved, peacefully, doesn’t it show the exact opposite: that tough, hard-headed negotiations with Iran can work? It seems to me that there’s a lesson in today’s news, as we start to tackle the really big issue — Tehran’s nuclear program. Maybe bombing first and asking questions later isn’t the way to go.

I have a hunch the right isn’t going to see it this way, but Shachtman sounds right to me.

So, what happened?

I think it was Nancy Pelosi wearing a cover into a mosque. Coincidence? I think not.

  • And every news report I’ve seen fails utterly to mention that we tried to kidnap some of their top intelligence people.

    …The attempt by the US to seize the two high-ranking Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi leaders is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the heads of the CIA and MI6…

    http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2414760.ece

    In totally unrelated news (not)… AIPAC sucks!
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/no-option-off-the-table_b_44900.html

  • Whoeee, Dick “bush man” Cheney is in rare form:

    Cheney said he did not know if there was a ‘quid-pro-quo’ ensuring their release but said if there was such an exchange, it sets a bad precedent for the future.

    “If you get into the business where you reward that kind of behavior, there will be more of that kind of behavior,” Cheney said.

    http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/04/exclusive_chene.html

    I guess he would have preferred trading some high tech weapons for the Brits?

  • Gee, the Iranians held British military captives for a dozen days and there’s no evidence of extraordinary rendition, waterboarding, piling them into a naked human pyramid, putting electrodes on genitals, smearing them with mentrual fluid, sequestering them for years without right to trial or legal counsel , subjecting them to extreme heat or cold, forced to spend their days with sensory deprivation hoods on their heads… these Iranians sound downright civilized. And THEY are part of the axis of evil?

  • The Iran-hawks of today are no different than the Hun-hawks of the early 20th Century. History is just packed with example on top of example, with Anglican priests railing from their high pulpits of the need to wipe every last German from the planet, and British/French schoolchildren being taught to recite verses insisting of the need to kill each and every German—right down to the last woman and child—“so that we’ll never have to do it again.”

    That’s what the Iran-hawks of today want—an Iranian-free world; a Syrian-free world; a Palestinian-free world—in short, and Arab/Persian-free world.

    The resolution of this most recent crisis between Iran and Britain can—if the Iran-hawks are ignored—be the first tentative piece of a greater bridge between the two geo-socio-political entities: East and West. There might even be room for Iran to permit British inspection of suspect shipping on the Iranian side of the straits—and likewise, for Iranian inspection on the Iraqi side. Such a vis-a-vis would eventually convert to an Iranian/Iraqi program of mutual cooperation, and the world would move just a little bit closer to being able to get along with each other.

    That would, of course, require the world effecting the “international isolation” of the Iran-hawks—and the Bush administration.

    But—would that be such a bad thing? Not to me….

  • I think George W Bush is spitting mad by now; he thought he could start another war and change the subject. I for one am relieved by this turn of events because I think Bush would have loved to start another war, and now he has to go to Crawford and clear brush while deciding what to do about Abu Gonzales. The crisis is over Mr. Bush; get real.

  • Interesting commentary. According to our findings, when it comes to foreign affairs, public anxiety is rising. While the war is definitely a driving force, the public’s uneasiness spills over into the entire range of challenges facing the United States. Overwhelmingly, the public embraces diplomatic measures, with 44% of those surveyed favoring diplomacy with Iran and an addition 28% backing economic sanctions. Favor for military action is in the single digits. Our anxiety indicator is currently at 137 on a 200-point scale, edging toward the 150 point mark that we would consider a crisis of confidence in government policy. Go to http://www.publicagenda.org/foreignpolicy/index.cfm to check out the fourth edition of our “Foreign Policy Index.”

  • Don’t kid yourself. The reason the British soldiers were seized was because US forces “took into custody”(read: Kidnapped) Iranian officials visiting Iraq.

    Then the US released Jalal Sharafi, which was enough of a bargain to let the Iranians release the British marines.

    Just more incompetence on the war front by the Bushies if you ask me.

  • “I think it was Nancy Pelosi wearing a cover into a mosque. Coincidence? I think not.”

    {…}
    Other countries “must recognize that Iran will protect its right and its land and as it did in the past it will in the future,” Ahmadinejad said. “We are sorry that the British troops remain in Iraq and their sailors are being arrested in Iran. We are sorry of this event.”

    He also questioned why one of the sailors was a mother. “Why is it that the most difficult missions, naval inspections, be given to a mother, who is carrying out a mission thousands of miles away from her child?” he said.
    {…}

    http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/04/africa/web0404-iran.php

  • I really, really liked the way Ahmadinejad had handled it, at least in public… a) no apology (no “maybe we were wrong, maybe the ship was in Iraqi waters”), b) medals to those who captured the ship and, c) *forgiveness* to the released sailors (“you were wrong, but I’m magnanimous”).

    So, the immediate crisis is averted, and he’s “saved face”. Bush could take some lesssons in statecraft from the wily Persian 🙂

  • I’d be interested to know what was going on aboard HMS CORNWALL when the big snatch was going down. I’ve been part of the occasional boarding party operation, and the ship that deploys the boarding team always hovers nearby, weapons at the ready. This is in case the ship to be boarded declines to stop without…umm..encouragement or, worse still, elects to bugger off with the boarding party embarked. The ship remains alert and aware of all surface and air contacts in the vicinity throughout the operation, until the boarding party is safely back aboard. this is not only for the safety of the boarding party, although that is the primary reason, but because the ship is itself vulnerable while restricted in its ability to maneuver.

    Which begs the question; where did he Iranians spring from? How is it, especially if this was an act of war and HMS CORNWALL was in international waters, that the Iranian boats were not fired upon – or at least warned that would be a consequence of approaching any closer? State-of-the-art radar is always backed up with visual lookout.

    Have people already forgotten that a simple inflatable loaded with explosive nearly sank USS COLE?

  • Mark, HMS Cornwall could not intervene directly because the search operatrions were taking place at a distant location from the ship in waters too shallow for the Cornwall to operate.

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