Ewen MacAskill, Julian Borger, Michael Howard and John Hooper
Saturday April 7, 2007
The Guardian
The US offered to take military action on behalf of the 15 British
sailors and marines held by Iran, including buzzing Iranian
Revolutionary Guard positions with warplanes, the Guardian has
learned.
In the first few days after the captives were seized and British
diplomats were getting no news from Tehran on their whereabouts,
Pentagon officials asked their British counterparts: what do you want
us to do? They offered a series of military options, a list which
remains top secret given the mounting risk of war between the US and
Iran. But one of the options was for US combat aircraft to mount
aggressive patrols over Iranian Revolutionary Guard bases in Iran, to
underline the seriousness of the situation.
The British declined the offer and said the US could calm the
situation by staying out of it. London also asked the US to tone down
military exercises that were already under way in the Gulf. Three days
before the capture of the 15 Britons , a second carrier group arrived
having been ordered there by president George Bush in January. The aim
was to add to pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme and alleged
operations inside Iraq against coalition forces.
At the request of the British, the two US carrier groups, totalling 40
ships plus aircraft, modified their exercises to make them less
confrontational.
The British government also asked the US administration from Mr Bush
down to be cautious in its use of rhetoric, which was relatively
restrained throughout.
The incident was a reminder of how inflammatory the situation in the
Gulf is. According to some US and British officers, there is already a
proxy war under way between their forces and elements of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard.
Meanwhile, the Iranians are convinced that separatist guerrilla
attacks in Khuzestan and Baluchistan provinces are the work of British
and US intelligence respectively. Earlier this week, ABC television
news reported that a Baluchi group, Jundullah, based in Pakistan and
carrying out raids inside Iran, had been receiving advice and
encouragement from American officials since 2005.
A senior Iranian source with close ties to the Revolutionary Guard,
told the Guardian: "If this had been between Iranian and American
soldiers it could have been the beginning of an accidental war."
With the crisis now over, a remarkable degree of consensus is emerging
among British, Iranian and Iraqi officials about what happened over 13
nervous days - namely that the decision to seize the Britons was taken
locally, and was not part of a grander scheme cooked up in Tehran.
"My best guess is that this was a local incident which became an
international incident," said one British source closely involved in
the crisis.
Both sides had been watching each other closely for years across the
disputed line separating the Iranian and Iraqi sides of the Shatt al-
Arab waterway and the northern Gulf beyond and British officials say
that Iranian boats regularly infringe on foreign waters.
The senior Iranian source meanwhile, claimed there had been three
British incursions into Iranian waters in the three months leading up
to the capture and that the decision to detain the British naval crew
on March 23 was taken by a regional Revolutionary Guard commander,
responsible for the waterway.
Once the 15 captives were brought back to Iran, their stay was
guaranteed to be unpleasant. The Pasdaran (as the Revolutionary Guards
are universally known in Farsi) are a law unto themselves, feared
within Iran for their thuggish methods.
There is also general agreement in London and Tehran that once the
crisis had been triggered it took nearly two weeks to untangle,
because their release had to be agreed by all the key players in the
perpetual poker game that passes for government in Tehran. But those
players could not be reached because they were scattered around the
country for the No Rouz (new year) holiday.
"Nobody who counted was answering the phone," said one senior British
official. "By the time the Iranian leaders got back from the holiday
[on Tuesday] the phone was ringing off the hook, including from people
they didn't expect, calling on them to release the captives quickly."
Among those unexpected callers were their closest allies, the Syrians,
as well as leaders from far-flung states with no direct stake in the
Gulf. Even the Colombian government issued a protest.
Another surprise intervention came from the Vatican. Hours before
Wednesday's release, a letter from Pope Benedict was handed to Iran's
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It said the Pope was confident
that men of goodwill could find a solution. He asked the supreme
leader to do what he could to ensure that the British sailors and
marines were reunited with their families in time for Easter. It
would, he said, be a significant religious gesture of goodwill from
the Iranian people.
What impact the Pope's message had is impossible to assess. But some
of its language was reflected at the press conference at which the
release of the 15 Britons was announced. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
said the decision to "forgive" the sailors and marines had been taken
"on the occasion of the birthday of the great prophet [Muhammad] ...
and for the occasion of the passing of Christ".
The Iraqi government also played a critical role, pushing for consular
access to five Iranians who had been arrested by US forces in Irbil
and had been in custody since January, and helping organise the
mysterious release of an Iranian diplomat who had been in captivity
since February.
In the first days of the crisis, Iraqi officials also helped the
British to identify the exact boundaries of Iraqi waters, the Guardian
has learned, suggesting the British were not as certain of their case
as they had publicly claimed.
But it was the unexpected release of Jalal Sharifa, the second
secretary at the Iranian embassy, that raised most eyebrows, fuelling
speculation that some kind of bargaining was going on. The diplomat
had been missing since he was plucked from the streets of Baghdad on
February 4. Iran blamed US forces in Iraq for ordering the diplomat's
abduction, but US military officials denied the claims. Baghdad's
foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, however, has insisted that
negotiations over Mr Sharafi had been under way long before March 23.
Some credit for the abrupt release of the British naval crew has also
been given to Tony Blair's top foreign policy adviser, Sir Nigel
Sheinwald, who got through to his Iranian counterpart, Ari Larijani
for the first time the night before Mr Ahmadinejad made his surprise
announcement. The opening of a Sheinwald-Larijani channel of
communication is being hailed as one of the few pluses to emerge from
the affair.
The crucial decision for release was taken on Tuesday by the supreme
national security council. It includes representatives of the
presidency, the armed forces and the Revolutionary Guard, and Tuesday
was the first day they could all be brought together following the No
Rouz holiday.
"I think they realised pretty quickly the game was not worth the
candle," a senior British government source said.
link to
www.guardian.co.uk]
