Iran | Stand-off in the Persian Gulf | Economist.com
Iran has picked a ticklish time to act like a rogue state—probably intentionally
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AT FIRST blush it looks like a re-run. In 2004 Iranian forces, without provocation, snatched British sailors in the Persian Gulf. Last week Iranian forces, probably the Revolutionary Guard, did so again, detaining 15 sailors on patrol in small boats. But the later incident is proving to be the more worrying. In 2004, Iran’s government held the British sailors for a while, made them confess to crossing into Iranian waters, and let them go. This time, Iran evidently wants more.
This time the British insist that there is absolutely no doubt its sailors and marines were well on the Iraqi side of the Shatt-al-Arab, the waterway dividing Iraq and Iran. They were on a routine mission inspecting an Iraqi ship, something that Iranians have often monitored them doing. Iran, in particular the Revolutionary Guards who have reportedly taken the sailors to Tehran, is in a provocative mood. Shortly before the Britons were snatched last week the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, commemorating the Persian new year, delivered an unusually bristling and defiant speech for that normally cheerful holiday. He gave warning that Iran would strike back with all its capabilities at any invading enemy.
He was referring to the escalating tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme. America and Israel say that Iran is building bombs, and many think that one or the other may yet use an air strike to slow or end the Iranian efforts. Others are making their frustrations plain. In December, the UN’s Security Council passed mild sanctions on Iran. When the Iranians snatched the Britons last week, the council was close to passing new anti-Iran measures, targeting arms exports, a regime-connected bank, and individuals tied to the nuclear programme. The kidnap did not help the country’s case. It may have helped swing grudging members, including two Muslim countries (Qatar and Indonesia), behind the vote.
Even the new measures will not bite hard. But Iran may worry that it is losing more ground. A report last week in the New York Times suggested that Russia will no longer deliver fuel for an Iranian nuclear-power reactor it is building at Bushehr, unless Iran suspends enrichment. The Russians quickly denied it. But there may be cracks in the Iran-Russia relationship nonetheless. Russia may be getting exasperated over late payments, not politics. (Mr Ahmadinejad’s free-spending politics, along with a febrile economy, have pushed even Iran’s oil-rich finances into shaky territory.) Whatever the reason, Iran may be risking alienating its best friend among the permanent, veto-wielding members of the Security Council.
A final reason Iran may be causing mischief is the number of its own personnel in its adversaries’ hands. In December, American troops captured five Iranians at an office in the Kurdish part of northern Iraq. America says they are Revolutionary Guard troops, clearly linked to Iraq’s Shia militants. Iran says they are diplomats. Worse for Iran, a former deputy defence minister, Ali Reza Asghari, disappeared in March while in Istanbul. Iran insists that Israel’s Mossad or the CIA snatched him. But Mr Asghari seems likely to have defected. As a former high-ranking emissary from Iran to Lebanon’s Hizbullah, he is likely to know much about Iran’s international terrorist activities, among other things western countries would like to hear about.
Iran’s seizure of the British personnel thus may be a sign that Iran is feeling squeezed. But squeezed is not the same as weak. Iran hawks believe that the Islamic Republic has “sleeper cells” in Europe, America and elsewhere standing by ready to commit terrorist acts. The kidnapping is one way of reminding negotiating partners that Iran can be a great deal of trouble when it wants to be. But the reckless move is receiving greater international condemnation than Iran’s 2004 sailor-snatching. In raising the stakes, Iran is also dangerously raising the temperature of the nuclear diplomacy.
Iran | Stand-off in the Persian Gulf | Economist.com
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