The plain Dealer – Unprovoked hostage-taking in disputed waters earns another black eye and exposes internal rifts
The abrupt end to 15 British naval per sonnel’s nearly two-week hostage ordeal in Iran suggests Tehran blinked. Iran got neither the apology nor the admission of guilt it sought from London.
As soon as the 15 sailors and Royal Marines were safely on British soil Thursday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair instead was on the offensive. He reminded the world of the cost of Iranian terrorist meddling in Iraq that may have contributed to the deaths Thursday of four British soldiers from a roadside bomb. The bomb was set in a Shiite area where Iranian agents are known to be active.
“I make no allegation,” Blair told reporters, as quoted by Bloomberg News. “But there are elements of the Iranian regime that are backing and financing terrorism in Iraq.”
Nor were clear quid pro quos evident, even though a top Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Iraq somehow found his way to freedom. U.S. officials also allowed the first consular access to five detained Iranian militants in Iraq.
Iran shouldn’t be rewarded in any way for its lawlessness in seizing the British personnel.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may get a bounce at home from his outrageous videotaped exploitation of the hostages.
But in the West, the crisis exposed him as a mere figurehead for powerful forces behind the scenes. It was not Ahmadinejad but the ayatollahs and their religious council who resolved a crisis provoked by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The guard’s naval forces seized the lightly armed sailors and Royal Marines in what clearly were disputed – and probably Iraqi – waters. The Britons were patrolling not in a way hostile to Iranian interests, but on behalf of a friendly neighbor.
No doubt, the Revolutionary Guard thought it could get some military mileage from the hostage-taking. Yet given the evident lack of coordination with political figures, the snatch instead suggests a dangerous rift between military hard-liners and religious leaders eager to present a more moderate face to the world.
In the final analysis, Iran wins no points by reinforcing its scofflaw image.
