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04-06-2007, 19:44 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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Burgomaster
Join Date: 08-02-03
Location: Minneapolis
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Analysis: Beyond the British Captives
Has Iran really won anything by leveraging the 15 UK sailors? According to this and other analyses, it's lost face the world over:
Quote:
Analysis: Beyond the British Captives
April 3, 2007
Prepared by:
Lionel Beehner
From the moment it began, it was clear the confrontation between Iran and Britain over the capture of fifteen British military personnel would be no isolated incident. First, there is the nuclear issue. Britain has sought to internationalize the dispute by raising complaints at the UN Security Council and European Union, both of which are involved in levying sanctions against the regime over its refusal to suspend its uranium-enrichment program. It remains unclear if the seizure of the British naval personnel was in response to the latest round of UN sanctions against Iran. Also, Iran’s handling of the crisis—by airing footage of the sailors giving what the British government says are forced confessions—could further isolate it (USAToday). Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says the regime already “has awful public diplomacy” (PBS). Even Russia, one of Iran’s main economic allies, has distanced itself from Tehran in recent weeks, although it did press to soften last week’s Security Council statement related to Iran’s seizure of the British personnel.
Second, the ongoing crisis may affect multilateral negotiations on Iraqi security issues. An upcoming regional conference—a follow-up to the March 10 meeting, which would bring senior U.S. and Iranian diplomats in the same room to discuss Iraq—has been called into question because of the current standoff over the abducted sailors. No venue or date has yet been set. News reports also suggest the Iranian foreign minister would be a no-show (Turkish Weekly) as long as the United States still has members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in custody in Iraq. But a State Department spokesperson said Washington still planned to attend the next round of the conference.
Finally, the hostage crisis raises important international legal issues, related to both the Law of the Sea and the treatment of detainees. Britain claims Iran violated international law by parading the sailors on television and extracting forced confessions. “They are entitled to contact with the International Committee of the Red Cross, and they may not be used as hostages (LAT),” write attorneys David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey. Tehran claims the British sailors wandered illegally into Iranian waters and therefore will be tried in Iran. Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, an Iranian expert, reckons the dispute may be resolved in either the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. One potential consequence of action by the Law of the Sea panel, he writes, is the weakening of U.S.-led efforts to interdict shipping to and from nuclear states like North Korea as part of its Proliferation Security Initiative (Asia Times).
Meanwhile, the crisis has put the United States in a bind. Some experts say diplomacy remains the best option, not military escalation. “We must keep talking to the Iranians, offering carrots even when these are contemptuously tossed into the gutter, because there is no credible alternative,” writes Max Hastings, an expert on Iran, in the New York Times. Thomas G. McInerney, former assistant vice chief of staff for the U.S. Air Force, recommends in the Wall Street Journal stricter sanctions coupled with “minimal military pressure,” which would include tit-for-tat air strikes every time Iranian-made roadside bombs go off in Iraq. William M. Arkin, a national security expert and blogger, calls this approach “idiocy” because it wrongly assumes Iranian leaders control what happens on the ground in Iraq, and that such U.S. air strikes would be effective.
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Source: Beyond the British Captives - Council on Foreign Relations
__________________
The Buck Stops Here
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04-06-2007, 19:53 PM
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#2 (permalink)
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Burgomaster
Join Date: 08-02-03
Location: Minneapolis
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In an interview, Juan Cole has stated that Iran's intent in capturing British sailors was to whip up nationalist sentiment for an unpopular regime:
Quote:
Cole: Khamenei Used British Captives to Energize Iranian Nationalism
Interviewee:
Juan Cole
Interviewer:
Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor
April 5, 2007
Juan Cole, an expert on Iran and other Middle East issues, says once the British sailors and marines were captured, the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used the incident “to whip up Iranian nationalistic sentiments” and garner popular support for the relatively unpopular government. Cole, who publishes the blog Informed Comment, says the captives were released when Khamenei was satisfied that Iran would not lose face and he could ensure the situation would not “spiral out of control.” He thinks it is “not impossible” that Iran might agree to a nuclear enrichment suspension if a proper formula can be found.
The British-Iranian hostages crisis has ended. What do you think was in the minds of the Iranians when the British sailors and marines were captured, and what do you think led to the dramatic release?
My suspicion is that the capture itself was opportunistic. You had these Revolutionary Guards out there and they saw the British exposed and they seized them. At that point it became a question of what the top political leadership would do. And I think the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, decided to use the capture to whip up Iranian nationalistic sentiments and garner popular support for [the Iranian] government, which is relatively unpopular these days. Khamenei has the difficulty that he represents the ideology of the Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, who founded the current Iranian state. Khomeini had developed the doctrine that the clerics should rule until the Islamic promised one, the Mahdi, returned. And Khamenei represents that ideology which is puritan in character, puts restrictions on individual liberties, and is fairly dictatorial. It isn’t popular.
Although Iranians by and large, as far as we can tell, don’t much care for this ideology anymore, they are still very nationalistic. And so Khamenei played this capture of the British sailors as a national moment. You even had the medical students of Isfahan University issuing a communiqué demanding that the British sailors and marines not be released and be punished for their incursion into Iranian national sovereign waters.
And the decision to let them go after almost two weeks?
Well, a moment of national fervor can’t be sustained very long. Khamenei had gotten out of it what he wanted to get out of it. In addition, British Prime Minister Tony Blair first responded by threatening to take the conflict to what he called a “different phase,” i.e. violence. The British immediately complained to the United Nations Security Council, which condemned Iran. And those kinds of actions and statements caused Iran to lose face, and made Khamenei dig in his heels. But on Sunday, the British Defense [Secretary Des Browne], announced that the British were engaged in direct bilateral talks behind the scenes with the Iranians. It’s clear that the British were prepared to make representations to Iran, that they had no desire to enter their waters, that they would avoid doing so. So the direct bilateral talks and the pledge not to violate Iranian sovereignty were face-saving for Iran.
Iran politics—and this is generally true of politics on the whole—is all about saving face. The combination of Khamenei having gotten what he could get domestically out of the capture, the British change in tone, which was instanced by the Iranian spokesman, and also the dangerousness of the whole enterprise—it could spiral out of control after all—contributed to the decision to end it.
Is it your view that President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is really just a political spokesman for Khamenei?
Well, it’s worse than that. I don’t think Khamenei likes Ahmadinejad very much. Probably by now he considers it to have been an error on his part to have backed Ahmadinejad for the presidency. I followed the Iranian press during this current crisis, and what was remarkable was how little Ahmadinejad was allowed to say about the whole thing.
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Read more here: Cole: Khamenei Used British Captives to Energize Iranian Nationalism - Council on Foreign Relations |
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04-06-2007, 19:57 PM
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#3 (permalink)
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Burgomaster
Join Date: 08-02-03
Location: Minneapolis
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Sick: Alliance against Iran
Part of an interview with Gary Sick, about the informal US/Arab/Israeli alliance against Iran:
Quote:
Sick: Alliance against Iran
Interviewer:
Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor
Interviewee:
Gary G. Sick, executive director of the Gulf/2000 Project, Columbia University
January 23, 2007
Gary G. Sick, a former National Security Council adviser on Iran, says an “emerging strategy” is developing that brings the United States, Israel, and Sunni Arab states in an informal alliance against Iran. He does not believe the United States would launch a military attack on Iran at this time because it lacks the military ability to be in Iraq and Iran at the same time.
Sick, founder and executive director of Columbia University’s Gulf 2000 Project that conducts research on Persian Gulf countries, also says a “very serious opposition” to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is developing in Iran. Because of this, he says the Iranians will soon be willing to seek a deal on their nuclear program.
Professor Sick, you were quoted in an interview on National Public Radio as saying there’s a kind of informal alliance among the United States, Israel, and the Sunni Arab states all worried about Iran. Does this amount to a new American policy for the Middle East?
I don’t know if you can call it a policy, but I really think it is a strategy that is being adopted. It has several very real advantages. First, all three parties—the Sunni states in the Gulf, plus Jordan and Egypt—are very worried about Iranian expansion in the region and of Shiite expansion in the Middle East. And of course Israel is very worried about Iran and makes no bones about it quite openly. For the United States, I think there’s a perception that by focusing on Iran, you can remove some of the emphasis on Iraq, which of course is a catastrophe. So there are some advantages to all sides and there also have been real contacts among all of the parties, which I think go beyond just casual talk.
Talk about the contacts. We know of public contacts—Vice President Dick Cheney was in Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been in Egypt, Israel, and Jordan as well as in the Gulf States recently. There have been rumors of the Saudis meeting with the Israelis. Have you been able to confirm that?
They obviously have released no data about what the conversations included. But there was a report in the Israeli papers that was never denied. It was simply dismissed by the Israelis as not something to be talked about that did talk about senior Saudi officials—who might in fact be Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who’s a former ambassador to the United States—meeting with very high-level people in [Israeli] Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government. I can’t absolutely confirm that, but I’ve seen no firm denials from the Saudis, despite the fact that you would think they would have an interest in doing so.
And, of course, we’re seeing this problem in action right now in Lebanon, where there’s a major confrontation going on between the Shiite Hezbollah and the Sunni-led government.
I do believe the whole Lebanese situation was the galvanizing moment for this emerging strategy. The action by Hezbollah in attacking Israel [last summer] was seen as an extension of Iranian power and an extension of its influence in the region. And the outcome of this, which is taking the form of Hezbollah challenging the Christian/Sunni government of [Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad] Siniora, I think, is also perceived as an Iranian plot. I personally think that’s an exaggeration, at least in terms of Iranian direct control or involvement in this. But if you look at Hezbollah as an Iranian creature—which I don’t, but many people do—you come to the conclusion this is a battle between Israel and Iran or even, by extension, the United States and Iran, and that Lebanon is the battlefield where this is being fought out.
Of course when you look at this, when you talk about this kind of strategic alliance, or whatever you call it, then the Iraq invasion was a total mistake, right, because it empowered Shiites?
I think it was. And I think it was by almost any consideration that you want to take. Certainly the way it’s played out has been a complete disaster for, I think, just about everyone involved. The big issue here, however, and one of the indicators that something really is going on is not only that Bush talked about Iran quite a lot during his [January 10] speech that was supposed to be about Iraqi strategy, including the surge in forces and so forth.
He identified Iran as a very important aspect of U.S. policy in the region. And that was followed almost immediately by the arrest of Iranian officials in Iraq in various places, including Kurdistan. That sent, I think, quite a strong signal that, if nothing else, there is a shift in focus here and that perhaps Iran is being set up as the excuse for why the Iraq policy is not working very well.
And much has been made of the fact that Secretary Rice on her recent visit, particularly to Egypt, did not get into any discussion about democratization, whereas last year she was very outspoken on the need for more democratization in the Middle East.
Well, if there is a new strategy emerging, as I have postulated, I think the United States has a couple of important things that it must do for the parties to this coalition, if you like. One is that the United States is going to have to shut up about democratization—that this has put our authoritarian Sunni allies in the region on the defense and it complicated their lives. I think the days of pushing democratization in the Middle East are probably over, at least for the time being. And also, I think it requires the United States to take a more active role in promoting an Arab-Israel settlement of some sort. The Arabs—Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Egypt, Jordan—if they’re going to cooperate with the United States on Iran and if that involves at least an implicit cooperation with Israel, they need some political cover.
And the obvious political cover for them would be that they can claim that there’s an invigorated effort to find peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and I think to that extent they need to have some demonstration of progress. I note that Condoleezza Rice, in her trip to all of these Arab countries, has in fact been stressing there’s going to be a vigorous push on the Palestinian issue.
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Read more here: Sick: Alliance against Iran - Council on Foreign Relations |
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04-11-2007, 13:47 PM
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#4 (permalink)
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Military Professional
Join Date: 12-31-06
Location: Sutton Coldfield
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In my own humble opinion, Iran lost nothing with this incident except they now know that piracy and kidnapping is acceptable.
Britain on the other hand, in one incident, has lost all credibility regarding the famous Royal Marines, our Green Berets!! A reputation built up over hundreds of years lies in tatters all due to their inability to handle the situation, a marked reluctance to fight out of it and their pleas in the press of their "harrowing" ordeal!!
Get a life Marines, that was a holiday! We are the laughing stock of the world - congratulations and well done.
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Never lie, then you have nothing to try and remember.
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