MICHAEL SETTLE AND IAN BRUCE
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might be regarded in the West as an anti-Semitic demagogue, but yesterday he also emerged as a consummate PR man, putting on a confident display of goodwill before the world's media.
The dramatic announcement at the end of his eagerly-awaited and twice-postponed press conference was evidence that magnanimity is a dish best served piping hot, in front of as many cameras as possible, with the broadest of smiles.
Given international support for the UK's position, albeit lukewarm in certain UN quarters, the possibility of increased EU sanctions if the crisis dragged on probably concentrated the theological minds in Tehran to make them take dramatic action.
According to one military expert, Iran probably released the 15 British Navy personnel because it realised no further political capital could be gained from holding them.
Tehran's handling of the crisis as a public relations stunt was "brilliant" and will have bolstered domestic support for the regime, according to former Army officer Amyas Godfrey.
Mr Godfrey, an associate fellow of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), was not surprised at the timing of their release.
He said: "It was coming soon. The hints were that the next 48 hours were crucial. I think the Iranians probably figured out fairly quickly that these people didn't have a lot of information - they're all fairly junior and doing a routine job in the Gulf.
"It's not wartime so there are no secrets about where their ship, HMS Cornwall, is. From the Iranian point of view, they would not have got much more out of holding them for much longer."
While Iran insisted the seizure of the British sailors was not linked to anything else, it just so happened one of its diplomats arrested in Iraq in February was yesterday freed, and there was also talk of consular access being granted to five Iranians captured one month earlier.
To add to the coincidences, Syria, having claimed to become a middleman in the diplomatic exchanges, was being visited by Nancy Pelosi, Democrat House Speaker of the US Congress, on a goodwill trip that has supremely annoyed George W Bush and his Republican colleagues in the White House.
As the euphoria at the release of the 15 sailors is enjoyed over the Easter break, serious questions are already being asked in Whitehall about how on earth Britain got into this unholy mess. Last night, critics who remained silent while the hostages were in Iranian hands began to question why HMS Cornwall, the mother ship, was several miles away and unable to intervene when the 14 men and one woman were surrounded and captured.
A number of serving personnel are asking why the warship's Lynx helicopter returned to the flight deck while the boarding party was still searching beyond visual monitoring range, allowing Iranian Revolutionary Guard patrol boats to close in and cut off their escape route.
Normal procedure is that the helicopter would hover over the naval party to provide "top cover" and deter resistance, while lightly-armed marines scramble on to a suspect vessel to check its cargo.
Military opinion in the aftermath of the release of the naval hostages was concentrated yesterday on avoiding a repetition of the incident.
One naval officer told The Herald: "The boarding party acted sensibly and within the parameters of the rules of engagement on the day. They were armed with rifles and a few pistols. The Iranians had machine-guns and rocket-launchers.
"If a firefight had broken out, it could have ended only one, tragic way. This was not a film script. Our people were outnumbered and overwhelmingly outgunned. That apart, the intention is not to start another shooting war in the Gulf." Colonel Clive Fairweather, formerly second in command of the SAS, added: "People who criticise the guys involved, and their commanders, should remember the UK has just 7000 people in-and-around Basra - and only about one third are combat troops.
"Iran sits just across the river from there with regular soldiers, Revolutionary Guardsmen and Basij militia in very large numbers. The Brits also have tens of thousands of hostile, Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militiamen at their backs.
"We would have been under siege, taking needless casualties, and in deep trouble very fast indeed if this incident had escalated from a propaganda opportunity to trading bullets. Our people are now coming home and nobody has died. That's a result." While London offered no formal negotiations or apology, and eventually got their people out safe and well, the winner in diplomatic terms appears clearly to be Tehran.
One big question is: where does this leave UK-Iran relations? Mr Godfrey warned relations between the West and Tehran were likely to remain frosty.
He said: "They (the Iranians) seemed very jolly, all smiles, by the end, but I don't think anything's going to change. It will make it more difficult to do military operations near there.
"However, I don't think Iran's going to say, we're going to come and chat about our nuclear programme now'.
"I think they are very smugly sat there saying, we've just gained more support in our country for standing up to the West'. If anything, they might be more robust now."
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