British Hostages Return

The kidnapped British sailors have returned to the U.K., but all is not well. The regime has only been strengthened by humiliating the Brits and the appeasers think this is a sign feckless diplomacy actually accomplishes something.

Mahmoud's 'Gift'

While we can be grateful for the captives' release, no one should conclude from this episode that the Iranian government is taking a new peaceful turn, or that its President has become Mahmoud the Munificent. If anything, the events of the past two weeks show the opposite--notably the influence inside the regime of the Revolutionary Guards, who provoked the incident by seizing the sailors in Iraqi waters only hours after a unanimous vote in the U.N. Security Council to stiffen sanctions against Iran's nuclear program. Their objective was clearly to create some negotiating leverage and humiliate Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is leaving office later this year. Hostage-taking has been a tool of Iranian foreign policy going back to 1979, and this was merely another turn of that wheel.

Over in London, they're feeling even worse.

They're free, but Britain has been humiliated

Relief at the freeing of the British sailors and Marines in Iran is tempered with dismay at the humiliation to which they and the country they serve have been subjected.

The 14 men and one woman are due to return to Britain today, in time to be reunited with their families for Easter, a point not lost on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he announced their release.

The Government will congratulate itself on securing their liberation within the relatively short period - given the complexities of dealing with the various power centres in Iran - of 12 days. It will also be pleased that they are physically unharmed, though we do not yet know the psychological pressures they may have been put under. An initial high-risk policy of taking the abduction to the United Nations Security Council was replaced by low-key diplomacy, in which the dispatch to Teheran of Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Tony Blair's foreign policy adviser and Britain's ambassador-designate to Washington, seems to have been crucial.

Meanwhile, Amir Taheri has notes the usual deception on the part of the Iranians.

Iran's Crackdown

WAS the crisis over the cap ture of the British hostages part of a smoke screen for a crackdown on dissidents in Iran?

The question is posed in Tehran as the establishment debates the future of the regime's foreign and domestic policies.

The crackdown is beginning to gather pace. Several publications critical of government have been shut down, and numerous officials regarded as "not revolutionary enough" elbowed out, especially in the provinces. And now the regime seems to be setting the stage for show trials that recall the worst days of Stalinism in the Soviet Union.

UPDATE: More at Hot Air.