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Iran thumbs its nose at the world

Author: Published on: Published in: Commentaries

This commentary was first published in the Jerusalem Post

The abduction of the 15 British soldiers aboard the HMS Cornwall three days ago is Iran’s way of telling or reminding the world that it is a powerful military and regional force, and that the international community should be advised against overstepping its boundaries when it comes to the Islamic Republic’s national interests.

By removing 15 British soldiers at gunpoint the day before the UN Security Council decided on new sanctions directed at Iran, the Iranians were saying quite clearly that they just don’t give a damn.

Though President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad felt the sting of being refused audience in New York for the UN meetings on the sanctions, his audacious disregard for international peace and security is a message to the UN and the Security Council that Teheran is not scared of sanctions, and furthermore, the sanctions being discussed at the moment are not enough to deter the government from its course.

The kidnapping of foreign personnel is nothing new for the Iranian regime. This is a pattern that we have seen since the hostage crisis in 1979, when 66 American hostages were held for 444 days.

Since then, Iran has gone unpunished for all of its aggression directed at the West. As we have seen in the cases of the French and the British before them, Iranian scare tactics play along the lines of attacking foreign embassies in Teheran, or reverting to kidnappings of foreign officials in Lebanon or in Iran itself.

In 2003, when Iran viewed British foreign policy as leaning unfavorably against them, revolutionary guards fired at the British Embassy to reverse the pressure and relieve the strains dictated by Britain’s application of foreign policy. The Iranians have even been so bold to attack an American military base in Lebanon, through its proxy Hizbullah (in 1983).

Israel has had the greatest opportunity to reprimand Iran for its aggressive tactics, but its failure in the war has allowed Iran to grow bolder and stronger.

Only the United States stands capable of putting an end to Iranian attacks, but the Americans are showing too much indecisiveness to convince the world they are about to do so. Iran has not yet attacked the US directly, which seems to be the only thing that would force the Americans into a military conflict with Iran. However, the American military presence in the Gulf is not the deterrent that many attribute to the fact that Iranian and American clashes have not yet erupted. And the Iranians have not yet had retribution for their five revolutionary guards arrested by American forces in Iraq!

The kidnapping of the British sailors in the Shatt al-Arab waterway separating Iraq and Iran is as significant as it is symbolic. The waterway is not only the main artery for Iraqi oil shipments, but it is been the center of a territorial feud between Iraq and Iran which has been going on for nearly 30 years. The claim by the Iranian Foreign Ministry that the sailors were in Iranian waters was a way for the Iranian government to let the new Iraqi government know that they still believe the waterway belongs to them.

If the Iranians go so far as to make a lot of noise over this incident, they may find themselves in a very strong position to attract a deal from the West. The Iranians hope that there are enough political implications in this ordeal to provoke an international incident and drive a wedge between the US and the UK, but the reality of the situation dictates that neither side would let tensions escalate to such a point.

The British could be persuaded to trade assets in exchange for their soldiers. The British know that any of their soldiers being tried for espionage in Teheran would mean unbearable amounts of pressure from inside their own country to get them out before an execution.

It seems strange that during a time of war, and with a heavy military presence, the British did not defend the unfortunate 15. If the British are scared of a full-scale conflict with the Iranians, the future does not look good for the 14 men and one woman of the HMS Cornwall.

Dr. Ely Karmon is a senior researcher at the Institute for Counterterrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center at Herzliya, and was interviewed by Yaniv Salama-Scheer of the Jpost.com

author

Senior Research Scholar, International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, Israel Dr. Ely Karmon is a  Senior Research Scholar at The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel. He lectures on International Terrorism and CBRN terrorism at the M.A. Counterterrorism Studies at IDC. He holds a B.A. in English and French Culture from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (1964), a Licence in International Relations from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques and a Licence in Bantu languages from the Ecole de Langues Orientales, in Paris (1969). He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Haifa University (1996). Associate Fellow, International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR), London. Member of the International Permanent Observatory (IPO) on Security Measures during Majors Events at the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), Turin, Italy. In this framework he participated in UN seminars preparing security at Athens Olympics (2004), Turin Winter Olympics (2006) and Beijing 2008 Olympics. Dr. Karmon briefed Shanghai authorities on security and threat assessment for the Expo 2010 event. Member of the General Assembly of the International Institute for Security and Cooperation, Sofia, Bulgaria. International Expert to the Civil Military Disaster Medicine Committee of the International Disaster Medicine Association (IDMA), Naples, Italy. Member of the Editorial Board of Revista Universitas/Relaçoes Internacionais, journal of the Centro Universitário de Brasília – UniCEUB. Dr. Karmon is member of the Atlantic Forum of Israel and is involved in NATO workshops on terrorism and on the Mediterranean Dialogue. Visiting fellow (2002) at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which published his policy memorandum Fight on All Fronts? Hizballah, the War on Terror, and the War in Iraq (December 2003). Has been Fellow at the Proteus Management Group (PMG), a think tank focusing on future scenarios at the Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA. Served as advisor to the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the Anti-Semitism Monitoring Forum of the Israeli Government Secretariat. His fields of research include political violence, international terrorism, CBRN terrorism, and the strategic influence of terrorism and subversion in the Middle East and worldwide. Has written extensively on international terrorism and strategic issues of the Middle East and has participated in numerous international conferences. His book Coalitions between Terrorist Organizations: Revolutionaries, Nationalists, and Islamists was published in May 2005 by Brill Academic Publishers (Leiden and Boston). The Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College, published his monograph, ‘Iran–Syria-Hizballah–Hamas: A Coalition against Nature. Why does it Work?’ (May 2008). Dr. Karmon is a frequent commentator on Middle Eastern issues in the Israeli media (Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Israeli TV channels, Kol Israel, i24News TV), for the Spanish daily El Imparcial and numerous media outlets worldwide.

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