15 British Sailors Held By Iran

Breaking news this moring is that 15 British Navy sailors conducting stop-and-search operations on the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway between Iraq and Iran have been captured at gunpoint by the Iranian navy.

The Guardian writes:

The Iranian navy has detained up to 15 British sailors, the Ministry of Defence confirmed today. The Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel were taken after they had boarded a dhow during a routine patrol in the Shatt al-Arab waterway at 10.30am local time.

While they were searching the fishing boat for possible smuggling activity, Iranian boats approached the vessel and captured the men at gunpoint and taken to an Iranian naval base.

The Britons had approached the dhow in two inflatable boats from the frigate HMS Cornwall. The Foreign Office said Iran's ambassador in London had been summoned and Britain was demanding their immediate safe release.

A MoD spokesman said: "The boarding party had completed a successful inspection of a merchant ship when they and their two boats were surrounded and escorted by Iranian vessels into Iranian territorial waters."

"We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level and on the instructions of the foreign secretary, the Iranian ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office.

"The British government is demanding the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment."

The BBC adds that the British sailors had boarded the dhow because they believed it was involved in illegal car smuggling and the Telegraph notes that the dhow was an Iranian vessel.

Steve Clemons (Edit - link fixed) believes that this is a case of the US and Iran "poking each other through proxies...Iran is using these British military personnel to send signals to the U.S. -- and the U.S. has taken similar actions against Iran inside Iraq and probably along the Iran-Iraq border." He feels that the incident will increase the chances of a US-Iran war.

The Scotsman adds that journalist Ian Pannell, onboard HMS Cornwall, is providing more detail on the actual capture:

“While they were on board, a number of Iranian boats approached the waters in which they were operating – the Royal Navy are insistent that they were operating in Iraqi waters and not Iranian waters – and essentially captured the Royal Navy and Royal Marine personnel at gunpoint."

This isn't the first time that UK Naval personnel have been seized by Iran. Back in July of 2004 six British Royal Marines and two seamen were captured by Iran in another incident on the same waterway. At the time, the UK government insisted that the British seamen hads been in Iraqi waters when captured, but later backed off quietly from that insistence when it proved unclear what was actually the case. It's quite possible the same has happened again, with both sides thinking the incident occured on "their" side of the border. The waterway is narrow and the border often unclear.

My thinking is that this will cause a short media kerfuffle, will ratchet up the rhetoric for a while, and then be resolved peacefully with both sides believing and publicly stating that they were in the right. It isn't a causus belli for either side. However, Steve Clemons is correct in the sense that the memory will influence actions and make such incidents more likely still in future.

Update Briebart is reporting a Pentagon official as saying:

the confrontation happened as the British contingent was traveling along the boundary of territorial waters between Iran and Iraq. They were detained by the Revolutionary Guard's navy.

My prediction that both sides will claim the law and territorial boundaries are on their side and then quietly settle this definitely stands.


Update 2 Since this post has been linked to by the folks in PJ's, among others, I suppose I should explain why I think it's not a cause for war. Firstly, the British Foreign Office and embassies are staffed by competent career professionals, not amateur political appointees and campaign contributors - and the politicians in charge listen to those professionals, unlike in the Bush administration. Secondly, and more important in a wider sense, the UK simply isn't crippled by the ages-ago albatross of the Tehran hostages driving it's policy with regard to Iran. I think Americans truly underestimate how much that history drives their current perceptions of what makes sense as policy.

So unless Dubya gets his poodle Blair to jump through another hoop in the search for more war, it will be settled by negotiation. Bloggers like Macsmind "This could justifiably be called an act of war" and Passionate America blog “Iran Might Have Just Started World War 3” are indulging in their own bellicose wish-fulfillment here.

Update 3 Just to prove my point about the Rightwing having a fetish over Iran since the Tehran hostage crisis, here comes Jules Cretinden who writes "Terrorist-supporting nation reverts to hostage-taking roots...Anyone think this wasn’t a purposeful, planned operation intended to throw everyone off balance as the UN Security Council eyeballs sanctions vs. Iran?"

Yeah, because such this incident is definitely going to stop the UK and US leaning on everyone to make those sanctions as strict as possible by talking up the Iranian threat...NOT! If throwing everyone off balance on sanctions was the aim, this isn't how anyone would accomplish it...'cept maybe Jules if he were in charge of Iran.

Sheesh...