OK, so where have we ended up? As I write this, 15 British sailors and marines are in the air on their way back from Iran. After all the tough language, alarm about where the standoff was heading, the quiet diplomacy and the murmurings of secret deals, we find ourselves in a situation in which the Iranian government - the people who started this whole thing off - has got two things out of it. Firstly, even if no-one in the west quite accepts at face value Ahmadinejad’s claim that the release is a “gift”, he has managed to create the impression that the Iranian regime is at least reasonably human and prepared to take a humanitarian action in releasing those held. And second, Iran has reminded everyone forcefully that it is a country which expects and needs to be treated with care and respect in that region.
If I were directing Iranian strategy I think I would regard these as pretty good outcomes - reminding western governments that it needs to be taken seriously, while simultaneously making a ”˜soft’ appeal to western publics that it is not so bad after all. In fact it has turned out so well for the Iranian regime - or rather more precisely the very different strands which participate in the governance of Iran - that I find it difficult to believe that this was not, broadly, the outcome they had prepared and planned for right from the start.