Why diplomacy fails when dealing with Iran

The Belmont Club:

The recent mock siege of the British embassy in Teheran by "demonstrators" hurling stones and firecrackers, pretending to be outraged at Whitehall's arrogant refusal to "apologize", was described by the Times of London as "hampering diplomatic" efforts to solve the crisis. That remark by the Times underscores how badly they misunderstand the game Teheran is playing. Teheran's game plan has worked as brilliantly as Whitehall's has been abyssmal and here's why. The principal uncertainty facing the Ayatollahs on the day they kidnapped the British sailors was how London would react. Would Whitehall respond through diplomatic channels or was this going to be treated as a crisis that would jump the green baize routine? On the day the incident took place, the Ayatollahs could not be sure....

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In comments section, I suggested that the British would be best served by "going ugly early" as strongly as possible without crossing the line into overt hostilities. The strategy behind such a move would be to make the Iranians work to put the ball back into diplomatic territory.

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But as events transpired, Whitehall telegraphed that it was going the diplomatic route by first going to the EU, then to the UN, which of course required that its Embassy remain in Teheran. The Ayatollahs must have breathed a sigh of relief at that moment. Because now they knew which route the British were going to take. And unsurprisingly the wheels came off the British wagon within days. The EU threatened to take appropriate action. The UN spent a whole day deliberating whether to issue a statement expressing "concern" over the British hostages instead of taking the opportunity to "deplore" Iran's actions. Very shortly after the British committed to going down the diplomatic track, the Ayatollahs knew Whitehall was up against a dead-end....

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So having received their "short answer", this certainty totally devalued the naval exercises by the USN in the Persian Gulf. However menacing the fleet off their shores might be, the leadership in Teheran knew, with absolute certainty not only which way "the British were coming" but that they were going to miss....

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Teheran is doing well because they are not playing the diplomatic game. In fact, they are violating every rule in the diplomatic book. Threatening to try uniformed men as spies, demanding apologies from victims of what was essentially a cross-border snatch operation, displaying their captives on TV. And now, pelting the British embassy with stones and firecrackers. They are punching entirely below the belt while their opponent is locked into a Marquis of Queensbury stance. That's asymmetrical warfare....

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It is curious that the Brits did not anticipate the Iranian bad faith since that has been their style since 1979. They also made a critical mistake early in the negotiations by making the classic trial lawyer error of asking one too many questions on cross examination.

They got an early admission from the Iranians that the snatch was done in Iraqi waters. Rather than trumpeting this information and putting the Iranians on the defensive about their bad faith, they gave them an opportunity to revise and extend their remarks and come up with a new calculation that put the action in Iranian water.

Never give a hostile witness operating in bad faith that opportunity. As a lawyer Tony Blair should know this fundamental rule of dealing with an adversary. His foreign affairs employees obviously blew it.