“Why don’t they respect family values in the West?”
Citing humanitarian concerns and a desire to break an empasse that has pitted his government against Western public opinion, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced the release of 15 British sailors and Royal Marines. The detainees were members of a crew that had been patrolling waters in the Persian Gulf off the coast of occupied Iraq on a mission to interdict smugglers.
Iranian forces, variously described as Coast Guardsmen and members of the Revolutionary Guard, captured the crew on March 23. According to Iran, as well as to the confessions of at least some of the detainees, the British vessel was boarded by Iranian forces inside Iranian waters, a position disputed by the UK as well as by the United States.
While Iran’s refusal to release the captives stoked long-standing neoconservative hopes that the incident might spark a war, or at least armed reprisal, Ahmadinejad rejected calls from hardliners in Tehran to try the crew as revenge for similar Western seizures and even, they claim, assassinations of Iranian officials. Instead Ahmadinejad, who has proven adept at exposing Western hypocrisy and human rights double standards, decided to make a public relations play, pardoning and releasing the servicepeople, along with a statement that reinforced Iranian pride while castigating Western behavior.
Image: Ahmadinejad meets detained British sailors, marinesAhmadinejad made the announcement at a ceremony where he awarded a medal to the task force officer who intercepted the British vessel. “On behalf of the great Iranian people, I want to thank the Iranian coast guard who courageously defended and captured those who violated their territorial waters,” he said. Playing to the war fatigue which is plaguing governments in both the United States and Great Britain, Ahmadinejad said that “We are sorry that British troops remain in Iraq and their sailors are being arrested in Iran.”
Ahmadinejad also highlighted another problem faced by both the US and their British allies: a sharp decline in recruitment to the armed forces as a result of the war on Iraq, which has no end in sight. While, like all Western nations, the UK sermonizes about “child soldiers” to the Third World, it was itself caught sending underage teenagers to fight, while the United States has increased the numbers of “Category Four” mentally challenged people it signs up. One of the sailors detained by the Iranians was a young mother, Leading Seaman Faye Turney, whose distraught pleas broadcast by the Iranians shamed Britain and its once-proud “hearts of oak” seagoing tradition. Asked the Iranian President, “How can you justify seeing a mother away from her home, her children? Why don’t they respect family values in the West?” The “family values” line is a deft jab at conservative politicians in America, who generally support the war.
Ahmadinejad’s performance was another installment in his repertoire of holding the West up to scorn for the hypocrisy it displays. Only recently he exposed Western castigation of the human rights records of Iran and other Third World nations by hosting a “Holocaust Conference” which showcased scholars and others subject to prosecution and persecution in the West for questioning aspects of the Second World War. The conference also highlighted the cynical political use of the Holocaust on behalf of Israel and Zionism in general.
Adding to the public relations defeat for neocons in the West is the fact that the Syrians played a decisive role in the release. Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said that “Syria exercised a sort of quiet diplomacy to solve this problem and encourage dialogue.” Syria is part of the so-called “Axis of Evil” which neocons — and their Israeli sponsors — seek to isolate and eventually see destroyed. The importance of the role Damascus played is heightened by the fact that the UK’s Tony Blair arrogantly would not even negotiate with Tehran to win the release of the detainees. Abandoning one’s own on the field is a hallmark of all out-of-control regimes.
The whole incident also gives a black eye to British morale. It was virtually unheard-of for seamen, marines or soldiers to broadcast on behalf of “the enemy” under any circumstances. Yet some of the British detainees made statements admitting their “guilt” not only to the Iranians but to the world at large. Such a performance reflects the overall demoralization of the West and the mercenary nature of many in the armed forces. With genuine patriotism demonized and wars fought for reasons that have little to do with real national interest, many weak-willed people have no loyalty to anything. After all, why stand strong when your own government encourages Islamic immigration and criminalizes those who dare to question such acts? Such seeming weakness has great effect in the Third World, and Iranians will without question have even less fear and more contempt for their Western foes than before. Iran is a huge, warlike nation with a recent war behind it and difficult topography, a West already ground down in Iraq — which itself is only a third the land-size of Iran — will face a nearly impossible task subduing Iran if Western leaders are crazy enough to listen to the neoconservatives and launch a war on Tehran.
The UK detainee incident is likely to raise Ahmadinejad’s stock in Iran, which has a long, ugly history with the United Kingdom that is little-known in the West. People in Iran well remember what happened to their democratically-elected Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953. Aiming to nationalize Iran’s huge oil reserves, Dr. Mosaddeq was overthrown in a bloody coup sponsored by the US and Great Britain, called Operation Ajax. Iranians have held Western demands for “democracy” and “human rights” in contempt ever since. Ahmadinejad himself has been subjected to assassination by ethnic terrorists allegedly fiananced by the UK. By being seen to stand strong against Westminster, Ahmadinejad’s popularity is bound to have climbed, while the seeming belligerance of the Brits has no doubt underlined Iranian attitudes towards their historical enemies in the UK.
While the controlled media in the West often called the detainees “hostages,” an emotionally-loaded word, they were not being held in demand for any exchange, and so were not hostages at all. However, Ahmadinejad has experience with hostage-taking, according to the neocons (although the CIA says it has no proof). Supposedly, Ahmadinejad took part in the 1979-1981 seizure of hostages at the US embassy in Tehran soon after the overthrow of the Shah.
The arrest and detention of the British marines and sailors is a new low-point in Western relations in the Middle East. Until the West gains leaders who have a more realistic understanding of the issues involved, such incidents are likely to continue.
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