A New Hostage Crisis or Just a Test of Wills?
By Chad A. B. Wilson
Published April 2, 2007, 10:20 am in Military / Foreign policy.
I originally wrote this column on Friday, March 30, 2007, but I didn't have a chance to publish it until now. NOthing much changed over the weekend, though: Iran is still holding strong, but Britain is now making gestures toward diplomacy. None of that changes what I said here, however.
What the heck is going on in Zimbabwe? And what are we supposed to believe regarding the Iran/Britain showdown? I want to talk about both of these issues, but I think I will only have time to talk about the Iranian incarceration in this column. For the British, this situation is untenable. They want their servicemen released. The Iranians, however, don't want to give up their captives.
As an important sidenote, I find myself wanting to use the term hostage here, but I want to be careful about that. The captives aren't officially hostages yet. As of right now, they are simply detained. Imagine what the US would say about the people being held at Guantanamo Bay as hostages. They would go crazy and claim that those people are being held legally. They are not hostages because they are not being held in exchange for something. A hostage will be released based on actions or stipulations. These captives have no stipulations yet; they are simply being detained. Some people may claim that it's a matter of semantics, but it's much more than that. Again, think of our "detainees." We're not claiming that we will release them based on some actions by Aghanistan or anything like that. Even if all Islamic terrorists lay down their arms and pledge allegiance to America, that won't mean we will release the detainees, although I imagine that we would. So for now, I will keep calling these detainees in Iran "captives." I expect that situation will change, though. I imagine that Iran will come out soon and claim that Britain (or the West in general) must perform some action in order to have the captives released. At that point, I will change my tune and my term--they will then become hostages.
With the British, I understand them. I don't know what their servicemen were doing in those waters, but it's not quite clearcut that they were in the Iranian waters, anyway. There's no dividing line, after all. Supposedly, Iraq and Iran had decided many years ago to establish the middle of the sea as the division between the two nations, but this was then dismissed by Hussein some time ago. So either side claiming that the people had trespassed isn't as clearcut as it sounds. And we can't really believe the servicemen's "confessions" on Iranian television, either. Although the personnel look as if they're doing alright, there is no telling how they have been coerced. I doubt heavily that the Iranians are doing anything that bad to them, though. Even though they probably want Britain to perform some action, if there is proof that they tortured or harmed the British servicemen, then I imagine there will be another war.
So I understand that Britain wants their people back, and they're willing to put all kinds of pressure on Tehran to do it (isn't it weird how we call governments by their cities?). They're even trying to get the U.N. and the European Union to pressure Iran and break all trade with the country. They're all balking, of course. Even though Europe may sometimes act like a fraternity (you know, the "I got your back" attitude), when there's money involved, they're not necessarily listening. They may all kinds of claims and don't do anything. Ah, just like all governments.
But I don't really understand Tehran. I don't really understand their motives for detaining the personnel in the first place or for holding them. I also don't understand what they think they can get out of this deal. What are they going to demand of Britain in exchange for the release of the personnel? It may just be a statement. In public Iranian prayers on Friday, the Iranians condemned what the BBC reported as "the aggression of the British army." They said that the British were still acting like "nineteenth-century imperialists." You know what that makes me say? "Okay...So what's your point?" To be fair, they're not really acting like "nineteenth-century imperialists." Let's at least give them credit and say that they're acting like twenty-first-century imperialists. They want a presence in the Middle East and they want to have economic control of the region, but I don't think they're interested in actually ruling it or establishing a colony there. I definitely don't think they want what we now have in Iraq; they're not that stupid, after all. Besides, they're pulling most of their troops out of Iraq. So what does Tehran want? If they want British troops out of the region, well, they've practically got it.
Now it could be that they actually want the U.S. out of Iraq or for Israel to establish an independent Palestinian state. If that's the case, then things get tricky. I doubt Israel will do anything to help, but the U.S. is going to be in a tight spot. Bush owes Blair, I would say, for his support during the initial Iraq invasion, even if Britain did eventually flee. But will Iraq be free of U.S. troops because Iran has fifteen British servicemen? Absolutely not. They should forget about it right now. Remember what we talked about in my last column? This is Bush we're talking about, the guy who never backs down. Do not expect him to do anything to help get the captives released unless it's going to war against Tehran.
And that scares me. In some ways, it seems as if Tehran is merely trying to tempt the West. They're mocking us with the nuclear weapons and their Western hostages. They making a statement that the West has no power over the region, that even though Britain and the U.S. are so powerful, they can do nothing against Iran. They're thumbing their noses at Britain (and by extension, against the U.S.), and the West can do practically nothing.
That upsets me, of course, but in some ways I think they're right. We're tied down in Iraq with no real end in sight. Basically, we are powerless right now. And I'm sorry to say that.
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