Iran hostage crisis - Who won?

It is a simple question, it does however have a long answer.

In military terms battles are won and lost on victory conditions which have to be met, like taking or holding some objective or destroying some military unit or it surviving. Normally speaking in military terms both sides can't fulfill their victory conditions as they tend to be exclusive (That is not always the case).

However this was a bit of political theater. Unfortunately it involved our service personnel. As such it was a battle fought on two different battlefields in two completely different theaters and it could be the case that both sides could easily achieve their victory conditions.

Domestically in the UK I suspect the picture is going to be mixed. Clearly we have got our people back and that is good. All our national politicians have been both careful and circumspect. In short maybe at home we won.

In Europe we won. No question there. They will move on to talk about something else soon enough, and the backlash won't gain much headway their.

Across the pond, and in the wider world I am afraid we look a bit silly. This clearly was not our finest hour. You only need read my article here to get a flavour of how we may be viewed.

As I said it is a mixed bag.

So how has Iran and I'm a dinner jacket got on?

Well, I suspect he has met all his victory conditions hands down.

Firstly Great Britain has history in the area and has had a massive influence on all sorts of things from borders to the way some armies have been equipped and trained to overthrowing the odd government or two. Effectively getting one over on us gives Iran immense kudos with their target audience, mostly Shia, across the Arab world and indeed further a field. It plays well on the "Arab street" and indeed it raises Iran's and the Shia profile amongst Sunni's who are not rabidly sectarian but disaffected.

Secondly contrast the treatment of our boys to Guantanamo Bay. new suits, not orange jump suits. Good food verses army rations. I could go on. This will play well with their target audience, showing us as harsh brutal and unfair compared to their "hospitality".

It is going to become increasingly difficult to criticise countries for a poor human rights.

President Ahmadinejad appears to be the master of political theater. We should stop thinking of him as a backwoodsman, and start thinking about what he is going to do next. During the Second World War we had psychologists work out how to play Hitler like a fiddle. It worked. FDR would not politically declare war on Germany so we got Hitler to declare war on the USA. We need to relearn the lessons of the past.

So then the question comes, what can we learn? Well not a lot. The fact is we already knew what to do, which is to intercept ships a long way before they get to that territory as we did in the first Gulf war. They other lesson is that you can let people get so close to Iran (Even though they were closer to Iraq) without sufficient support.

For more on the crisis see here.