Posted on 04/07/2007 4:23:37 PM PDT by blam
Buoyant Teheran warns of further kidnappings
By Gethin Chamberlain, Philip Sherwell and Tim Shipman, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:56pm BST 07/04/2007
Hardliners in the Iranian regime have warned that the seizure of British naval personnel demonstrates that they can make trouble for the West whenever they want to and do so with impunity.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: a PR bounce
The bullish reaction from Teheran will reinforce the fears of western diplomats and military officials that more kidnap attempts may be planned.
The British handling of the crisis has been regarded with some concern in Washington, and a Pentagon defence official told The Sunday Telegraph: "The fear now is that this could be the first of many. If the Brits don't change their rules of engagement, the Iranians could take more hostages almost at will.
"Iran has come out of this looking reasonable. If I were the Iranians, I would keep playing the same game. They have very successfully muddied the waters and bought themselves some more time. And in parts of the Middle East they will be seen as the good guys. They could do it time and again if they wanted to."
Americans also expressed dismay that the British had suspended boarding operations in the Gulf while its tactics are reassessed.
"Iran has got what it wants. They have secured free passage for smuggling weapons into Iraq without a fight," one US defence department official said.
It is also clear that the Iranian government believes that the outcome has strengthened its position over such contentious issues as its nuclear programme. Hardliners within the regime have been lining up to crow about Britain's humiliation, and indicated that the operation was planned.
Conservative parliamentarian Amir Hassankhani, a former member of the country's Revolutionary Guard and supporter of the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told the country's semi-official Fars news agency: "The arrest and release of the British sailors proved that if Iran's issues and demands are overlooked at the international level, the Islamic republic can create different challenges for the other side."
However, a British Government official familiar with the negotiations said that while the abductions had provided Ahmadinejad with a platform from which to humiliate the West, such behaviour would have undermined Iran's ambitions for its nuclear programme. Countries which might otherwise have supported Iran would now be questioning whether a regime that took hostages could be trusted with sensitive nuclear technology.
"Ahmadinejad may have got some short-term PR bounce out of this, but the more cerebral members of the regime may be quite alarmed that they have squandered their perceived right to be treated as a country that should be trusted with a nuclear enrichment programme," he said. "In the long term, they may have lost out."
It must be playing well to the Iranian people. You know, the ones who love America so much.
Just try it! I think...
“t”
Uh, try the second incident in less than two years. This is a British paper and they don't even know that the same type of hostage incident took place in June of 2004? One would have thought that after the first incident, the British Navy would have vowed that something like that would never happen again. They should have been embarrassed the first time; they should feel humiliated now.
Put Nansty on a boat in those waters...
Put her in Iranian waters. I heard she has the power to summon the Kraken.
Come out, come out where ever you are, you cerebral peoples.
Heck, she could turn it to stone!
Feed a bear once....
How could the Mad Mullahs in Terhan NOT be encouraged?
They comitted a blatant act of high seas piracy AND kidnapping...and all the EU did was drop trau and grab their ankles.
Meanwhile we’ve got a contingent from OUR country over there kissing the rings and @ss of the terror enabelers...
Wonder how encouraging THAT is to Hamas and Hezbollah?
If Margaret Thatcher were still in charge, I’m sure that shortly after the release of the hostages, the sound of afterburners kicking in and bomb bay doors opening would have been heard over Teheran.
Hello! We have been down this path before!
I agree. if MT were still in charge Imahandjob would have been taken out asap.
If "playing well" means intimidating them, then yes, I suppose it is "playing well". Antiregime/antimullah elements will tend to be dispirited when they see the West back down rather than confront the regime. This will also be reinforcing to them the prestige and degree of freedom accorded to the Revolutionary Guard, some of the same elements who will break up pro-Democracy demonstrations and savagely beat protesters.
Change the ROE, have the supporting Crusier, Frigate do it’s job to defend the allied Sailors and Marines.
I’m still trying to figure out how the Frigate’s surface radar sweep didn’t pick up the incoming boats...or that the sonar shack didn’t hear the propeller noise of the approaching Iranian gunboats.
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