The Guardian Probably Supported Chamberlain's Diplomatic Efforts Also

This had little to do with diplomacy. As it has been pointed out before it was a test of British resolve and a propaganda exercise by the Iranians. Iran 2 Britain 0

Iran crisis proves diplomacy works TheStar.com - opinion - Iran crisis proves diplomacy works
April 09, 2007

British officials were promised by their Iranian counterparts that there would be light at the end of the tunnel of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech. And there was. In a "gift to the British people" the president pardoned the 15 servicemen his forces had seized in Iraqi waters 13 days earlier.

It was a sophisticated piece of political theatre, in which the president turned what had become a diplomatic disaster for Iran into something of a personal victory.

Not only did Ahmadinejad seize ownership of the issue from his rival Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, but he also showed mercy in the face of British aggression. Cut to the loop of film which showed some of the servicemen personally thanking the president for his act of clemency and the whole drama has a happy ending.

Or does it? What are the lessons to be drawn from this episode and who profits from it?

In the short term, the Iranian regime can be shown to have reasserted its territorial rights and its sovereignty after a series of international humiliations, such as the arrest of five Iranians by the Americans in Irbil, the disappearance and presumed defection of a top general on a trip to Istanbul, and the mysterious death of a top Iranian nuclear scientist.

The incident could also teach the British navy to be not quite so relaxed about its personnel in waters where the international boundary changes according to the seasonal rise of the mud banks.

The larger issue is the effect of all this on the wider stage. A sword of Damocles heavier than anything Britain can fashion is hanging over Iran, and it is the conviction of hawks in Washington and the defence establishment in Israel that the only way Iran can be prevented from enriching uranium is to bomb it.

For the moment, U.S. policy is to exert maximum pressure on Tehran through economic sanctions. For more than 10 years Europe, including Britain, argued that the best way of tackling the Islamic regime was through a course of constructive engagement, culminating in a grand bargain, by which Iran would get trade and investment deals in return for surrendering its right to enrich uranium and receiving the material it needed for its civilian nuclear fuel cycle from abroad.

The grand bargain is still on the table, although perched on the edge. The neo-conservatives argue that if this is how a conventionally armed Iran behaves, how would a nuclear-capable Iran or its proxies act?

But surely the real lesson is that quiet diplomacy does work and that it can work in the future. It is easy in Washington to pour scorn on Nancy Pelosi's efforts to engage with the Syrian leadership. But the Democratic house speaker is right to break the ban on U.S. official contacts with Syria. There is no substitute for direct negotiation, especially with a revolutionary Islamic regime in Iran, for whom the popularly held grievance about past American and British interference in the gulf is as important as the issue in hand.

This is an edited version of an editorial that appeared Thursday in the Guardian, London.