british sailors to be released
 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070404/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_britain

"I'm glad that our 15 service personnel have been released and I know their release will come as a relief not just to them but to their families," Blair said outside his No. 10 Downing St. office. "Throughout, we have taken a measured approach, firm but calm, not negotiating but not confronting, either."



I'm sure there are some war mongers who think Blair did the wrong thing.

Diplomacy... It's a good thing!

Glad to hear they are being released.

I guess having all those US ships nearby helped the Iranians make a wise choice.

Let's just make sure they're safely home before we release the cruise missles :D.

What if they had refused to release the prisoners for 11 years, then started claiming they never had any prisoners to begin with?

Diplomacy should always be the first choice, but it should never be the only choice.

Re: british sailors to be released
 

From the article, first line:
Iran's President brought religion into it?

Why?

Why does this sound like something Bush would say?

Diplomacy my a$$. Warships nearby are pretty convincing.

Doubt that's it. More likely he just figured they'd gotten whatever political/propaganda value they could milk out of the situation. One less thing to worry about.

Exactly, it had nothing to do with diplomacy, Iran just used the pawns in the way they felt best suited Iran.

They want to convince the world they are going to be responsible holders of nuclear weapons and technology, this was just a way for them to portray themselves as reasonable and responsible.

Does Iran apppear like a paper tiger because they blinked?

Appear to who?

The U.S..

Yep, war mongers will always say that it was the threat of military action that resolved it no matter what the truth might be.

Do you expect Iran to admit that they were persuaded by anything other than diplomacy?

No, it does nothing to change the US's view of Iran as a tiger, non-tiger, paper tiger or non-paper tiger.

Who knows the truth?

Why would we think that US warships could possibly have done anything, except to down an Iranian airplane, which would then lead to a downing of an American plane?

We have more airplanes than they do?

they snatched them because they could
they released them because they could

Iran, was in full control, the whole time
and did not even break a sweat, because they knew they didn't have to

UK and US knew they couldn't
not without paying a higher price then they could afford to pay

No. Iran looks like a good chess player. My guess is that if there were a chess tournament involving the leaders of all the world's nations, Dubya would finish dead last.

I wonder why the HMS Cornwall didn't take any action in the first place, couldn't they have prevented this whole thing? Why did they just sit there & watch there comrades get abducted?

This worked in Iran's favor brilliantly. The west breathes a sigh of relief, Azmenijad looks like a "good guy" because he showed willingness to negotiate, and because they (likely) treated the detainees well. It has the effect of (1) buying time and (2) dividing western resolve against the more pressing issue - nuclear weapons development.

For one, I am not fooled for a second by this ruse. While western grandstanding politicians breathe sighs of relief and pat themselves on the back, Iran's centrifuges are still going full-bore. They mean to have a nuclear weapon and they'll obviously stop at nothing to get one. This distraction only helps them.

If this is anything like what went down in the 80's, there's a few containers of various weaponry on it's way to Tehran, FOB [10 Downing st|1600 Pennsylvnia]

where is Ollie N these days?? anybody has a fix on him?

Yes I get it.

Iran can do no wrong, our President can do no right. Anything Iran does is a brilliant move. Anything George W. Bush does is a blunder.

He did nothing here...he was obviously outsmarted. Had we launched missles or attacked, we would have been falling into an obvious trap. Had we used diplomacy, we would have been playing into their master plan of stalling us. See, WE ARE ALWAYS THE BAD GUY....at least until a Democrat is elected president, then we can do no wrong. :rolleyes:

This is like the Global Warming debate, where one side has effectively staked out the position that any possible outcome proves them right.

Maggie would have invaded.

Taught them a lesson like Galtieri.

It is bad enough when they say it, your repeating it just aint right. :D

I think that's why they played the religion card.

I think when all the facts come out, the US probably released the Iranians we took, and that played a role in the release of the Brits.

AQ1

I wonder if Mr. Bush not was rather disappointed by their release. Their capture would make yet an excellent point in an agenda to invade. Not that I presume to know if he wants to invade - but if he does it would..

Hey, quoting my own post!

But, one of today's AP articles made me do it.

See how reasonable and pragmatic Iran is these days!

"Sailors' Release Proof of a More Pragmatic Iran"

You "think" "probably".
I think that Ahmadinejad probably realized the world reaction wasn't quite what he expected after trying to make the most of his keystone kop navy's blunder.

There are some clues leaking out.

Captors Release Kidnapped Iranian Diplomat in Baghdad

By ALISSA J. RUBIN
Published: April 4, 2007

BAGHDAD, April 3 — An Iranian diplomat kidnapped by armed men wearing uniforms of the Iraqi security forces was freed here on Tuesday, Iraq’s foreign minister said, adding that he continued to work to free five Iranians held separately by American military forces and was optimistic that they would be released soon.

Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, said in an interview that the freeing of the diplomat was unrelated to the negotiations over the 15 British sailors and marines seized by Iran, accused of trespassing into its waters.

“People are trying to link this to the British sailors’ case,” Mr. Zebari said. “Really, it has no connection whatsoever.”

“Even for the other Iranian detainees, we’ve been repeatedly asking the MNFI to release them,” he added, referring to the Multinational Forces in Iraq. “We have a sense they are going to be released; we have some good pledges that they will be released after the investigation is finished.”

Other Iraqi politicians thought the timing of the diplomat’s release was difficult to separate entirely from the negotiations over the British sailors and marines. “It’s a curious coincidence,” said Ahmad Chalabi, the Shiite politician who has ties to Iran and is in charge of the government’s de-Baathification commission.

The released Iranian diplomat, Jalal Sharafi, the second secretary at Iran’s mission in Baghdad, walked into the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad this morning, Mr. Zebari said, adding that Mr. Sharafi remained uncertain who had kidnapped him.

Mr. Sharafi was seized more than eight weeks ago as he emerged from a bank in the middle-class, predominantly Shiite Karada neighborhood. At the time, the Iraqi police managed to stop one of the cars in the convoy that had whisked the diplomat away.

The four men inside were taken to the police station. They said they worked for an Iraqi security service, but when pressed, the security services denied that the men worked for them in any official capacity, Mr. Zebari said.

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Plenty of people were righteously indignant over North Vietnam attacking US Navy ships in the Gulf of Tonkin 40+years ago, too. But the truth eventually comes out.

Since A follows B, one can always make the argument of causality, even if none exists. It's interesting to see the America-always-wrong folks already making that argument, even before B has occurred.

But if you're right, and the US government did do a swap, that is shameful.