[Marxism] LESSONS IN CAPTURE, RELEASE OF BRITONS, by Jim Lobe

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This assessment of the outcome seems basically sound.  Gary Sick's remarks
are valuable because he is a former prisoner in the occupied US embassy in
Tehran who, while remaining proimperialist, has always kept his sanity about
Iran, Islamism, etc.

As far as I know, the only paper in the world to size the outcome out as a
victory for imperialism over Iran is the US-SWP's  'Militant,' which argues
that the Iranian regime -- as is the programmatic duty of all bourgeois
nationalists according to the Militant -- caved in to imperialist threats.

Like the Spartacist League of yore and today, the Militant's political
guides operate on the assumption that if their position is "unique," it must
therefore be the only Marxist one, and any deviation from it must be
adaptation.  The idea that their position could be unique because it is
completely out to lunch is ruled out by the "norms."

Unlike Saddam in Iraq -- whose refusal of desperately-offered good advice
from Fidel, as Lajany pointed out in a post on Zimbabwe, helped the
imperialists advance toward attacking Iraq -- Iranian policy has overall
(with the single glaring exception of the holocaust-denial conference) has
helped to block rather than playing into the hands of the US war drive.

An important aspect of this being the long-established position of the
Islamic Republic that they are opposed to developing nuclear weapons, a
policy established by Khomeini when he dismantled the shah's US-backed
nuclear program.
Fred Feldman






LESSONS IN CAPTURE, RELEASE OF BRITONS
By Jim Lobe 

Inter Press Service
April 5, 2007 

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37224 

WASHINGTON -- The drama surrounding the release of 15 British sailors and
marines after 12 days in Iranian captivity was designed to convey two key
messages that the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush would do
well to heed, say experts here. 


First, the Britons' original capture by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard near
the entry to the disputed Shatt-al-Arab waterway was meant to demonstrate
that, despite its conventional military weakness and diplomatic isolation,
Iran retains the ability to strike at Western interests when it feels
sufficiently provoked. 

Second, when Western powers engage Iran with respect and as an equal, they
are more likely to get what they want than when they take a confrontational
path designed to bully or humiliate the regime. 

While neither message is likely to be well received either at the White
House or among the neo-conservative and other right-wing pundits who have
tried hard to depict the incident as the latest sign of Islamic or Persian
barbarism, properly understood, they could form the basis of a new approach
capable of yielding results, according to Juan Cole, a regional expert at
the University of Michigan. 

"The British have now opened a channel," he told IPS. "Although this
incident really did constitute a crisis -- one that might have escalated to
very dangerous levels -- the resolution was diplomatic, and that diplomatic
resolution could contain the seeds for future diplomacy, if the British and
the Americans are so inclined." 

The announcement on Wednesday, that the sailors and marines were being
released in honor of the Prophet Mohammed's forthcoming birthday and the
Christian Easter holiday, was made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who then
met with the captives personally. 


"Our government has pardoned them; it is a gift from our people," he said,
adding that the gesture had "nothing to do" with Tuesday's release in Iraq
of a senior Iranian diplomat who was abducted two months ago reportedly by a
special Iraqi intelligence agency that works closely with the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA). "We approached the subject on a humanitarian
basis. It was a unilateral decision on our end," he insisted. 

Nonetheless, the diplomat's release, as well as reports that Tehran also
just received assurances that it would be given consular access to five
alleged Revolutionary Guard officers seized by U.S. forces at an Iranian
liaison office in Arbil nearly three months ago, suggested that Wednesday's
events were more than just coincidence, although both London and Washington,
like Ahmadinejad, insisted there were no quid pro quos. 

"I personally believe that the U.S. action (in Arbil) accounts for why Iran
chose to stage its capture of the British sailors," noted Gary Sick, an Iran
expert at Columbia University who served in White House under former
President Jimmy Carter. "Iran appears to have gained something from its
pressure tactics." 

That assessment was shared by Trita Parsi, president of the U.S. National
Iranian American Council (NIAC). "By taking the (British) soft targets, the
Iranians put pressure on the U.S." 

In addition to collecting bargaining chips, the original capture had other
purposes, as well, including rallying nationalist sentiment behind the
regime just as it faced the imposition by the U.N. Security Council of a new
round of sanctions for rejecting demands to suspend its uranium enrichment
program. 

As important, however, was the message Tehran wished to convey to the West
that it could indeed respond to what it saw as U.S. provocations in ways
that could harm or embarrass its allies. 

"In seizing the Iranians, who after all, had been invited by the Iraqi
authorities, the Americans were seen as behaving aggressively," according to
Cole. "Now, the Iranians have demonstrated that the Anglo-American forces
are not in a strong enough position to afford to do these things. They can
play tit for tat." 

"It is a reminder that Iran has quite an array of asymmetrical options
available to it to counter indirectly the actions of the U.S. forces in Iraq
and elsewhere," Sick agreed. 

At the same time, according to Sick, Tehran's behavior during much of the
crisis -- including both the seizure itself, the precise location of which
remains a matter of dispute, and its use of "confessions" by the British
captives and threats to put them on trial -- will probably have cost it
much-needed international support. 

"I suspect that recognition of this fact accounts for Iran's desire to end
this dispute as promptly as possible," said Sick. "For the same reason, I
suspect that this ploy will not be repeated any time soon." 

"I think the Iranians thought it was better to declare victory and put an
end to the crisis before there was any further escalation," noted Parsi. 

At the same time, however, Parsi and other analysts said that the point at
which victory could be declared was reached because of important changes in
the British approach to the crisis. 

While London officials have said the turning point came Monday, when Iran's
national security chief, Ali Larijani, gave a conciliatory interview to
Britain's Channel Four television -- an interview that was followed by a
critical conversation between Larijani and Blair's top foreign-policy
adviser, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, according to the *Independent* -- Cole points
to a shift in the British stance from one of threats and demands to a more
diplomatic approach over the weekend, including confirmation by British
Defence Secretary Des Browne that London was "in direct bilateral
communication with the Iranians." 

"These sorts of incidents are always to some extent about face, and
apparently the Iranians felt that when Britain agreed to enter into direct
bilateral negotiations, Iran had gained enough face to be magnanimous," he
said. "On Sunday, they were admitted as equals, not scolded as little
children. That created the opening for (Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali)
Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to climb down and save face." 

"Iranians have been signalling repeatedly, and not just during this crisis,
that they will engage diplomatically, but without preconditions and on the
basis of equality," said William Beeman, an Iran expert at the University of
Minnesota. "So now they say, 'You see, when we have the upper hand, you see
how magnanimous we are; we are a charitable, civilized people. We are
reasonable. You can talk with us.'" 

"The Iranian message is that if you deal with us respectfully, through
incentives, then things can get resolved rather quickly," said Parsi. "If
you only resort to force or impose sanctions at the U.N. Security Council,
then you'll only get stuck, and Iran will respond in kind. They're hoping
that the West gets the impression that that is the incentive structure
through which it can make progress with Iran. Whether that will be
understood in the West is obviously a complete different question." 

The Bush administration's relative silence during the crisis may also have
conveyed, inadvertently perhaps, another message -- that, despite widespread
speculation that its recent military build-up in the Gulf was intended to
prepare the grounds for an attack on Iran, it had no wish to do so, at least
for the moment. 

"The Iranian capture of 15 (British) military personnel could certainly have
been used as .a pretext (for a military strike), since it could easily have
escalated to a full-fledged military crisis," according to Sick. "I regard
the absence of unbridled escalation in this case as a significant indicator
that the U.S. desire for a strike may be more muted than it has been
portrayed."



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