By DAVID E. SANGER
The New York Times ââ¬â The Bush administration said Thursday that the release of 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran for two weeks created no new openings in dealing with Tehran, and it urged American allies to return their attention to enforcing new sanctions against Iran. In public statements and background interviews, White House and State Department officials said that they saw no indications that the release indicated a change of attitude by Iran’s leadership. Neither did they see any more willingness to discuss suspension of its enrichment of uranium ââ¬â the requirement that President Bush has said Iran must meet before he is willing to accept talks with the country.
One senior official, who like some other officials who discussed the issue spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing internal assessments of Iran’s motivation, said that the administration’s internal assessment of the episode, while incomplete, suggested that the seizure of the Britons was “probably not directed from the upper reaches government.” The official said that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad decided on the release because “he understood that they had exploited whatever they could from the incident” and that “declaring them guilty and letting them go was the cleverest way to get out of it.”
President Bush spoke on Thursday to Prime Minister Tony Blair, though the White House said nothing of substance about their discussion. But both the White House and Mr. Blair immediately resumed their insistence that Iran meet the United Nations Security Council’s demands on the nuclear issue and cease supporting attacks in Iraq.
Vice President Dick Cheney, the most outspoken critic of Iran in the administration, repeated his description of Iran as a dangerous nation in search of a nuclear weapon. He told Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-show host, that “you can imagine the extent to which the Iranians would be heartened” if the United States withdrew from Iraq.
Gordon D. Johndroe, the National Security Council spokesman, told reporters in Texas: “We’re pleased that they released the sailors. We just wish they hadn’t detained them in the first place.”
In interviews over the past two days, administration and intelligence officials said they had very little understanding of how the Iranians had reached their decision, or whether Mr. Ahmadinejad, whose own political position has been tenuous, was pressed by the country’s ruling mullahs to find a way out.
Washington’s guessing game is an indication, they said, of how little is known about who makes major decisions inside the Iranian government. But taken together, the administration’s public statements indicated a decision not to treat the release of the Britons as a potential diplomatic opening, but rather as evidence of Iran’s unpredictability.
“We just don’t see it as a new opportunity,” one State Department official said.
Nonetheless, there were indications of a debate, both inside and outside the administration, over whether the Iranians had used the episode to their advantage. Some hawks who have left the administration, and who have turned intensely critical of some of its policies, warned that the Iranians had sent several messages to Britain and the United States.
“Iran has emerged from this in a win-win situation,” said John R. Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, who has long argued for stronger sanctions against Iran. “It won by snatching them, and it won by giving them up.”
Bruce Riedel, a former Middle East expert for the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, said Thursday that “the Iranians accomplished what they wanted to accomplish: They sent the message that if the U.S. and the U.K. are going to mess with them, and specifically with the Revolutionary Guard, then they are able to mess with us. And they did it where we are most vulnerable.”
Mr. Riedel, now a senior fellow at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, said that he believed that this incident might not be the last. “I think they have decided to show that they can get nasty, and that they can give us rewards if we play to their concerns,” he said. “This is not a one-off event. I think it’s the beginning of a pattern of confrontation.”
Several administration officials said they doubted Iran would repeat the incident anytime soon. But they acknowledged that President Bush’s decision late last year to authorize seizing Iranians in Iraq who are suspected of planning or aiding attacks could lead to more arrests.
Mr. Bush has said repeatedly that he is not trying to provoke Iran into a confrontation. After the British troops were seized he said little in public, though on Saturday he described them for the first time as “hostages.” That was a word other officials here and in Britain were avoiding, for fear it could harden Iran’s negotiating position.
The release of the sailors and marines makes it easier for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to go forward with a meeting of Iraq’s neighbors, including representatives of Iran. Ms. Rice has said she would have no problem engaging Iranians in direct discussions about Iran’s activities in Iraq.
But Ms. Rice and President Bush have not budged on their demand that Iran cease producing nuclear material, at least temporarily, before any talks on its nuclear activities can be held with Britain, France, Germany and the United States. That is a condition the Iranians have refused to accept, leading to steadily escalating United Nations sanctions.
