The last few days have seen tragedy piled on apparent humiliation: the photographs of the four smiling young British men and women who died in a Warrior armored personnel carrier patrolling Basra and, on the same day, the sailors from the HMS Cornwall after their imprisonment in Tehran holding their press conference to explain their collusion with the Iranian propaganda machine.
For those who lived in the world of Commando comics, in which the dashing squaddy or Spitfire pilot always heroically triumphed in a trial of honest Brit against foreign evil, the contrast is bitter. On the one hand, honest-to-God soldiers giving their lives for their country.
On the other, servicemen and women being captured without a shot being fired, "singing like canaries," rather than simply giving name, rank and serial number and then flying home with gifts in business class.
Worse, Britain looked for diplomacy via the derided EU and UN to get its way. The tale of the 15 sailors and Marines is of temporization, as if Britain still had an empire and we were formally in a 19th-century style colonial war with Iran. Apparently, we look like fools.
And yet, beyond the imagery and the jingoism lies, at least in relation to Iran, an unappreciated success that points the way to more. After all, the sailors are home and there has been no deal. Better still, the Iranian government, obviously looking for a propaganda coup, has revealed itself as a government prepared to flout international law and mistreat prisoners in its quest for an accommodation.
Britain has clawed back a little of its shattered reputation and kept its head. Indeed, by arguing, talking and repudiating saber-rattling, we have, paradoxically, weakened Iran's argument that it is an injured innocent and strengthened our own that the international community should be watchful of this power and its nuclear ambitions. Soft power works.
After all, this is 2007. Conflict is conducted very differently, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair has learned the hard way. Shock-and-awe military tactics in the unilateral imposition of power may appeal to the video game mentality of the US military and political establishment, but they have created a torrid mess.
This time around, with only weeks left in his term, Blair refused US President George W. Bush's offer of ratcheting up the military pressure on Iran by overflying Republican Guard positions; he even persuaded Bush to tone down the US' planned military build-up. He unashamedly focused on soft power.
From day one, the British resorted to argument. The British sailors had been operating under a UN mandate at the request of the elected Iraqi government. The Iranian action had flouted international law, a claim the British made more easily because, for the first three days, the coordinates provided by the Iranians to justify their action placed the merchant vessel within Iraqi waters as well. Only when they realized their mistake did they adjust the coordinates to place the merchant vessel in Iranian waters, a correction so blatant that it made even the most sceptical of non-partisan governments aware that Britain might just have a case.
Then came the spate of letters from Faye Turney and the apologies from the other seamen, with their tellingly convoluted phrases, about trespassing in Iranian waters, while thanking their captors for their kindness.
The received wisdom in Tehran and the London media is that this was a propaganda coup. I am less sure. Even before Friday's press conference, few will have been credulous enough to believe that the confessions and thanks were spontaneous. Everyone suspected the context, now confirmed by the sailors, of constant psychological pressure, of being blindfolded and kept in solitary confinement.
The criticism leveled against the sailors is unreasonable. People are not supine mutton-heads unquestioningly lapping up government propaganda. Better educated and with access to multiple sources of information they think for themselves. Success in a war of wills between nation states is ever more about deploying soft power; being on the side of legitimacy, behaving authentically and winning arguments.
Which is why the crew read the times better than their critics. They had to stay alive, get out and then give a credible, authentic account of events. They have. And that is why Blair is right to claim victory for his dual-track strategy -- talking to Tehran while working to intensify international pressure. There was much mockery from British jingoists about the success of getting the EU unreservedly to back the UK position, calling for the unconditional release of the prisoners, backed by a commitment to take appropriate action if the Iranians refused.
Apparently, it was typical EU toothless saber-rattling. It was no such thing. The EU has economic clout with Iran that it is prepared to use and Iran was concerned at the unexpected unanimity from its 27 members. The EU position put some muscle into what otherwise would have been little more than hand-wringing. Iran was losing the argument and facing growing isolation.
If it wants to pursue its strategy of building an uranium-enrichment plant, isolation would be a disaster. The more it loses the argument, the more countries would vote for and adhere to a policy of tough economic sanctions. As the diplomatic encirclement over the sailors intensified, it needed to squeeze what propaganda it could from the incident, win face-saving assurances from Britain it would not trespass Iranian waters -- and backtrack fast. This it did.
Soft power is the new currency of international diplomacy, which the West has in abundance, but it doesn't always practice it. The tragedy of Iraq is that by invading without a renewed UN mandate, the US and Britain put themselves on the wrong side of the law, trashing their soft power and hopelessly disabling them, as they have discovered, in the post-invasion settlement.
Last week showed how the game should be played and put down a marker for Middle Eastern policy in the future. Talking to one's enemies and passing condemnatory motions in the EU and UN do not give the jingoistic adrenaline rush of machine-gun fire and missile attack, but ultimately they work. Blair has learned his lessons the hard way. Let's hope that British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who is more distrustful of the EU, has also learned them.
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