By Brigitte L. Nacos
A week ago, when members of Iran’s
Revolutionary Guard captured 15
British sailors in what they claimed was Iranian territory, the incident
was reminiscent of early November 1979, when militant so-called students took
over the U.S. embassy in Tehran and more than 50
Americans hostage. The earlier incident was not considered a crisis at the
outset because Washington had good reason to
believe that Iran’s
government officials would rein in the militants as they had after a similar
move against the embassy several months earlier. And even when this did not repeat
itself immediately, it was widely believed that the Iranian authorities would
end the situation sooner rather than later. Instead, what became known as the
Iranian Hostage Crisis dragged on for 444 days, contributed to President Jimmy
Carter’s defeat in 1980, and ended only after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as
president and Carter’s successor. Iran’s
government was willing to negotiate a settlement of the stand-off, when key
players in
Tehran recognized that the hostages were no longer needed for the consolidation of
their power at home or for their international agenda. The repeated
announcements that the hostages would be put on trial remained mere threats.
While the hostage ordeal was long and difficult, all of the hostages were
eventually freed. Lives were lost during the ill-advised and aborted attempt to
rescue the hostages. What, then, could we possibly learn from the more than 14
months of the earlier Iran Hostage Crisis?
To begin with, we must realize that the hostage holders are in the driver’s seat and determine whether to end the situation soon or drag it out. While members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard seized the British sailors and their ship, they acted more on behalf of the government than did the militants in 1979 initially. Whether President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was part of the hostage-holders of the earlier Iranian Hostage Crisis or not, he and others in Iran’s power elite seem eager to exploit the current situation as did the Ayatolollah Khomeini and Tehran’s government throughout the 1970-1981 crisis: the situation was ideal to sustain the attention of the world and frustrate and show-off the enemy--then Jimmy Carter and the U.S., now Tony Blair and the United Kingdom and by extension George W. Bush and the United States. If the 15 sailors were freed swiftly, the Iranians would lose the attention they crave and the world stage from which they attack their foes and defend their nuclear program. In other words, they have reasons not to free the sailors soon.
London, Washington, the European Union, the United Nations, and
other governments should not play into the hand of Iran's government by treating the predicament of the hostages like a major crisis rather a mere nuisance. By getting engaged in mass-mediated exchanges with President Ahmadinejad, Prime Minister Blair, President Bush and other high officials
assure the Iranian leader day-in and day-out appearances on the world stage of
public diplomacy and may unwittingly prolong the captured sailors’ predicament. When Jimmy Carter abandoned business as usual in the White House in order to concentrate on solving the Iran Hostage Crisis, he made a mistake. Today's leaders should learn from that mistake.
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