The 13-day long Iran-UK standoff over the Iranian capture of British sailors and alleged British violation of Iranian waters has ended with the release of the 15 sailors. According to the Iranians, the British sailors were captured when they entered the Iranian waters. Now the Iranian National Security Adviser Ali Larijani has called for an end to “the language of force” since his country’s priority “is to solve the problem through proper diplomatic channels.” The British Foreign Office has meanwhile confirmed London’s preference to find an early solution to the problem.
The silver lining of this bitter exchange is that once again the indispensability of dialogue as the primary instrument of settling disputes has been affirmed. More important, it demonstrates that assertion of sovereignty by a state calls for a determined attitude. Significantly Tehran did not compromise on the fundamentals. Iranians stuck to their position that their territorial waters, and by extension sovereignty, have been violated but left room for discussion about the underlying problem of disputed maritime boundaries. Clearly there is a dispute over where the border actually runs. The British say the border runs along one line, the Iranians say it runs along another line. Some international arbitration is now a must to delineate exactly where this border runs.
The 13-day crisis was triggered by a thought-through Iranian position on how to respond to the presence of the British Navy in what Tehran maintains are Iranian waters. Seven factors influenced the Iranian position. First, the recent history of the violation of the waterways by the UK. A similar incident occurred in 2004 when eight British servicemen were seized after allegedly straying into the maritime border. Secondly, the politico-military situation in the Iranian neighborhood. Most alarming is the US occupation of Iraq where UK functions as a junior occupation partner.
Thirdly, given the threat of an imminent US attack on Iran, Tehran can’t remain indifferent to any violation of its territory by a country that is viewed as a junior partner of the US. After all, the foremost question in global politics now is not if but when the US will attack Iran over the nuclear issue.
Fourthly, Tehran was aware that the UK sailors had entered disputed waters and therefore by capturing them it could generate sufficient pressure on UK to acknowledge that there is an underlying problem involving demarcation of the Iran-Iraq maritime boundary. Such an acknowledgement, Tehran believes, will lead to serious negotiations leading to a settlement to its satisfaction.
Fifthly, the Iranian government believed that the capture of the UK soldiers was a win-win move. It must have also calculated that given the extreme strategic instability in the entire region, London would not take any extreme step in response to the capture of its sailors. Yet for Tehran, the capture would provide a bargaining chip. Iran has been keen to settle matters of its territorial sovereignty, especially when it comes to islands and waterways. It seems to have successfully used this incident to initiate a process to have the international community acknowledge its sea borders.
Sixthly, the lesson that the post-revolutionary Iran has learned from the history of Western interventions is that it should always respond strongly to each and every provocation involving its territorial integrity. Covertly the pragmatic Iran has also opted to remain engaged with the “Great Satan” himself. In the summer of 2001 senior Iranian officials met with their US counterparts to jointly plan the removal of the Taleban from Kabul. Earlier the Iranians did receive US National Security Adviser Robert “Bud” McFarlane and four unnamed “American companions” who had arrived in Tehran on Irish passports and posing as the flight crew of a plane carrying military equipment that Iran had purchased from international arms dealers. McFarlane had brought gifts of a Bible autographed by President Reagan, a cake shaped like a key intended to symbolize an opening to better relations between the US and Iran.
Finally, Tehran believed that its capture of the UK sailors would be supported by the people in Iran and beyond. The Iranian government estimated that in an environment in which millions in the region believe that the Bush-Blair alliance has been the architects of the 21st century imperialist system extending over the Middle East, any bold Iranian response to the violation of Iranian sovereignty by the British would be welcomed.
Diplomacy has saved the day. Ratcheting up the rhetoric and remaining unmindful of the consequences would have created a battle context in an already warring region. It is a region whose vast areas are already exploding under the weight of an external occupation and internal political and social contradictions.
