Maximus Zeebra

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iran 'to release British sailors'

Not many days after the EU said they were behind the UK and demanded Iran to release the soldiers, they announce that they will.
Initially Iran said they would have the soldiers on trial and possibly have them for death sentances.

Is this news of release because of European pressure or UK pressure on Iran?

Iran knows that if they went against Europe in this it would make European support for a US invasion of Iran widespread and a combination of a US+European invasion more likely.

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I am just waiting for some American to pick apart my 5000 word reasoning, by a slight spelling mistake in a sentence, to prove why I am wrong, and he is right.

American politics, knowledge acquired by the people.

Ikari

I do believe the US was supporting the UK and the pressure on Iran as well.

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Cremaster77

Iran was never going to kill those soldiers. They wanted to show that they weren't willing to bend to the political pressure and isolation they've been coming under, but didn't want to start a war. They were looking for a way out. I'm not sure what the Iranians will use as an excuse for letting those soldiers go, but I'm sure that whatever excuse they will give, it will likely be lame.

Hatuey

If after the Madrid and London bombings Europeans still didn't get on board about this whole terrorism/axis of evil thing. What makes you think 10 captured soldiers would have changed anything? You live in a fantasy land.

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Is Intolerant Because He Won't Let The Intolerant Run Other People's Lives.

Maximus Zeebra

Of course not, the bombins were because those countries were in Iraq. The terrorists said that, we bombed in London because the UK was in Iraq, the terrorists who did it had prerecorded that on tape.

The same in Madrid.

Maybe all European nations should go to Iraq and help the US out of the mess they created themself and then have bombing happen all over Europe. Maybe we should simply take the focus away from the US and transfer it to US so the terrorists hates us instead, what a damn brilliant plan Hatman.

and yes, we are not part of the whole axis of evil/terrorism thing because that retoric is retarded.

We would be on board to stop Iran from harazzing the world and at the same time introduce inspections on their nuclear work.
It would be about the silly US war on terror, everyone else than the US know it will only create more terror.

Hatuey

What does that have to do with innocent people being bombed?

This mess we created ourselves? How many times I gotta tell you about the "Coalition of the Willing"? Do you honestly believe terrorist dont hate you already? Are you really that frigging retarded?

Yeah I'm sure the people who died at the Madrid, London bombings really think fighting terrorism is retarded too.

And appeasing terrorists the way you plan on doing will create Europistan and the United Arab States of America. I'll take our way anytime thank you.

oldreliable67

The Iranians created this incident to test the will of the West and demonstrate their own power, just as Iran-backed Hezbollah was able to measure Israel's resolution and the support of its own rank-and-file by Jerusalem's reaction to the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. Why does Iran want to provoke and then measure reactions? First of all, Tehran strives for domination in the Islamic world and it believes it can win the admiration of both Sunnis and Shiites by challenging the West. The mullahs assume that animosity to the West among Muslims is so deep and common that small victories and symbolic humiliations can bridge differences between the main Islamic branches. The kidnapping as a publicity stunt is particularly directed toward the mostly Sunni Arabic public.

Iran has once again proven masterful at the centuries old Arab negotiating tactic of retreating when attacked and attacking when your opponent is weakened.

Just my opinion. YMMV.

ashurbanipal

I don't think it's got anything to do with any of those options. Assuming that the sailors had violated their waters, and they were seized on those grounds, and also assuming that the sailors were not engaged in blatant espionage, it would be standard procedure to capture, interrogate, and then release them after a few days.

That said, I think there's a very deep game being played over Iran, and I don't have all the answers, but a couple salient facts that I think need to be kept in mind:

1) Russia, China, Venezuela, and Brazil all have significant ties to Iran. War with Iran would anger those countries and unleash retaliation from them on any country that attacks. Whether that would entail military or economic retaliation, or both, is hard to say. Thinking only about China, should they stop trading with the United States and should they dump their dollar reserves, it would hurt both us and them, but they're prepared to take that hurt. We're not, and they are waking up to that fact. We could not withstand a combined military assault on our positions in the Middle East by China and Russia while simultaneously enduring the loss of Venezuelan oil and the loss of Iranian, Russian, and Iraqi oil from the world market. China has the cash reserves to outbid us. War with Iran will cost us far more than most people understand.

2) If we're just talking about stealing oil for Western Corporations, there's considerable uncertainty about whether the juice is worth the squeeze. Iran may have a lot of oil, or it may not. There's quite a bit of information that their oil industry may fail by next decade.

3) Bush co. hopefully understand that a serious enough pretext has to be found to start war with Iran so as not to incur the wrath of Russia and China. We're shopping for that kind of pretext because geopolitically, if we can take Iran with little consequence, we will be the last man standing as we slide down the backslope of oil production starting this decade. Russia's got plenty of oil left (more than we do) but their land area is much larger so it takes more energy to run industry. More than likely, Russia will effectively fragment (whether they appear to politically or not). But if we could get Iran to do something really stupid (like sink a carrier or blow up an embassy), China and Russia will not be able to credibly oppose any retaliation.

4) As a close corrollary, it is almost certain that both Chinese and Russian intelligence is working actively in Iraq, Iran, and Afganistan to prevent us getting that kind of pretext. Watch the news in the next few months for rumors that Russia had something to do with this release; it'll merit a passing mention on CNN or BBC news. You can then dig into the alternative news for the full story. That full story will most likely be that the behind-the-scenes dialogue included some kind of ace-in-the-hole that Russia was holding that would weaken this as a premise for war, while at the same time showing that Iran had little cause to continue to hold the sailors.

5) Our intelligence in that area of the world continues to be pretty bad. There is no imminent revolution in Iran. The only revolution taking place is a cultural one, and it's quite a bit more tame than most would like to believe in the west. The people are not about to rise up and overthrow the Ayatollah.

6) All that said, we may still go to war with Iran without a pretext. If we do, it will not necessarily be a blunder, depending on specifics. Geopolitically, and assuming we don't have to worry about such silly things as having human empathy for the people doing the dying, going into Iraq was the right thing to do. The Saudis needed the oil to mask the failure of their Shedgun and Uthmaniyah mega-projects and the rapid decline of their oil production, and we needed a police station closer to the center of the action. Iran is another story. They're selling oil in Euros and are considering Yen and Yuan, which will ultimately have the effect of crashing the dollar if they can make it stick for a while. Additionally, continuously increasing production constraints worldwide will make conditions very, very bad before too long. Right now, the effect it's having is that third world countries are being priced out of the bidding, freeing up the oil they'd have otherwise consumed for first world nations. That game cannot continue forever, though, and our leaders understand that. Taking Iran would solidify our hold on the Middle East, and would ultimately control Saudi Arabia when the time comes for that.

As for what Iran wants, Oldreliable more or less nailed it. Iran is not a bloodthirsty nation any more than we are; if their oil industry is failing, however, they have a motivation to get western powers out of the Middle East. They'll have managed to resurrect the Persian empire if that happens.

Slainte

That's not what was said at all. They launched a huge rant about a global war on muslims in Chechnya, Kashmir, Israel, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq. They also lambasted western materialism and proclaimed their loyalty to the one true god amongst some other things.

As easy as it is to blame Iraq, there's no way 4 young men from Leeds decided to murder 50+ of their fellow countrymen solely because of it.

I didn't like the war either, but I'm going to blow up the London underground.

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Iriemon

Of course. The US having invaded its neighbor based on false pretenses, having called Iran the axis of evil right after Iran helped us in Afganistan, kidnapping six Iranian diplomats and holding them without due process etc etc etc is it any surprise that the Iranians would react that way?

How does the US respond to far less provocation?

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