Just hours before President Obama was set to speak before a Joint Session of Congress last night, an incident occurred in the Persian Gulf that could have escalated into a serious crisis when Iran’s Revolutionary Guard seized two American boats holding ten sailors who had allegedly drifted into waters the Iran claims as its own:
Iranian military forces seized two U.S. Navy boats Tuesday and are detaining them on Iran’s Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf, senior U.S. officials told NBC News.
The 10 American sailors aboard the small riverine vessels were on a training mission around noon ET when one of the boats may have experienced mechanical failure and drifted into Iranian-claimed waters, officials said. Iran’s coast guard took them into custody.
The officials said it’s unclear whether the sailors — nine men and one woman — had strayed into Iranian territorial waters before they were captured.
American naval ships routinely navigate the waters of the Persian Gulf near Iranian territory. The Gulf has been a flashpoint in the Middle East, and the incident comes on the same day President Barack Obama was set to give his annual State of the Union address.
“At this point, we’re still monitoring the situation and it’s not entirely clear what happened,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on MSNBC, adding that Iranian authorities confirmed that the sailors are safe.
Earnest said there remained no exact time frame for when the sailors would be let go, but didn’t expect a long delay. Officials told NBC News that the Americans aren’t expected to be released until around daybreak Wednesday.
Following reports of the incident, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with Iranian officials in Tehran by phone, attempting to secure the sailors’ release.
One senior official told NBC News the Iranians understand it was a mistake and have agreed to let the Americans go in international waters.
Senior U.S. military commanders had criticized Iran last month for its “highly provocative” actions when it fired unguided rockets near U.S. ships, including the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told The Associated Press that the boats were moving between Kuwait and Bahrain when U.S. officials lost contact with them. Farsi Island sits in the Persian Gulf in between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and is fortified by Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Despite the fact that there was very little actual information available in the United States at a time that amounted to late at night in Tehran, the incident was quickly seized on by pundits and commentators in the United States who, of course, proceeded to comment on the matter despite the fact that it was clear that they didn’t have any better information than the average citizen did at the time. Senator Tom Cotton, for example, called the seizure of the boats ‘humiliating,’ called on the President to threaten to tear up the Iran nuclear deal unless the sailors were immediately returned. Senator Corey Gardner suggested that the State of the United Address itself should be postponed because of the incident, something that hasn’t happened since President Reagan postponed the 1986 State of the Union Address, which was originally scheduled to have been given on the day the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed minutes after launch. The reaction of many of the Republican candidates for President invoked similar rhetoric:
If our sailors aren’t coming home yet, they need to be now. No more bargaining. Obama’s humiliatingly weak Iran policy is exposed again.
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) January 12, 2016
.@tedcruz tells @LesterHoltNBC that it was ‘striking’ that Pres. Obama didn’t reference the US Navy sailors detained by Iran in the #SOTU. — NBC News PR (@NBCNewsPR) January 13, 2016
Iran toys with U.S. days before we pay them, ridiculously, billions of dollars. Don’t release money. We want our hostages back NOW!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2016
My response to reports that Iran is holding ten American sailors: https://t.co/Cy1fyJZ64F — Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 13, 2016
Ten American sailors have been “arrested,” taken into custody in #Iran – @POTUS didn’t even mention it. #SOTU
— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) January 13, 2016
As it turned out, the ten soldiers were permitted to leave with their boats in the morning:
Iran on Wednesday freed 10 American sailors from two small Navy vessels that Tehran claimed strayed into Iranian waters, prompting their overnight detention as Washington opened direct contacts with Iran seeking their release.
A senior defense official, speaking in Washington, said the sailors were not harmed but would undergo medical evaluation and a debriefing in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. Meanwhile, their vessels were taken by another American crew to Bahrain, their original destination and home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.
The release appeared to end a potential flash point as Iran and world powers move toward the possible next steps in a landmark nuclear deal that limits Tehran’s atomic program in exchange for the easing of international economic sanctions.
The detention also added to tensions in the Persian Gulf region amid the worst diplomatic unraveling in decades between Shiite power Iran and Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies. The feud — opened by Saudi Arabia’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric earlier this month — has put Washington in the middle as it seeks to implement the nuclear deal while also backing its key regional partner, Saudi Arabia.
“Ten U.S. Navy Sailors safely returned to U.S. custody today, after departing Iran,” said a statement from U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. “There are no indications that the Sailors were harmed during their brief detention.”
According to the Navy’s statement, the sailors departed Farsi Island, where they were held, at 8:43 a.m. GMT (3:43 a.m. EST) on board the same boats that were intercepted. They were picked up by Navy aircraft and transferred ashore, eventually ending up in Qatar, while other sailors took charge of the vessels, called riverine command boats, and continued to Bahrain.
A senior defense official, speaking in Washington, said the sailors were not harmed but would undergo medical evaluation and a debriefing in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. Meanwhile, their vessels were taken by another American crew to Bahrain, their original destination and home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.
The release appeared to end a potential flash point as Iran and world powers move toward the possible next steps in a landmark nuclear deal that limits Tehran’s atomic program in exchange for the easing of international economic sanctions.
The detention also added to tensions in the Persian Gulf region amid the worst diplomatic unraveling in decades between Shiite power Iran and Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies. The feud — opened by Saudi Arabia’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric earlier this month — has put Washington in the middle as it seeks to implement the nuclear deal while also backing its key regional partner, Saudi Arabia.
“Ten U.S. Navy Sailors safely returned to U.S. custody today, after departing Iran,” said a statement from U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. “There are no indications that the Sailors were harmed during their brief detention.”
According to the Navy’s statement, the sailors departed Farsi Island, where they were held, at 8:43 a.m. GMT (3:43 a.m. EST) on board the same boats that were intercepted. They were picked up by Navy aircraft and transferred ashore, eventually ending up in Qatar, while other sailors took charge of the vessels, called riverine command boats, and continued to Bahrain.
The sailors will receive support to reintegrate with their unit, said Cmdr. Kevin Stephens, a spokesman for the 5th Fleet. He declined to provide details on the identities of the 10 sailors, reportedly including one woman. Stephens said the Navy’s priority now is “determining … how exactly these sailors found themselves in Iran. And that’s something we’re going to be looking at.”
Iranian and U.S. ships often come within hailing distance in the Persian Gulf during patrols and maneuvers. The gulf is also the route for more than one-fifth of the world’s oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which is jointly controlled by Iran and Western-ally Oman.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry, in a statement, expressed his “gratitude to Iranian authorities for their cooperation in quickly resolving this matter…. That this issue was resolved peacefully and efficiently is a testament to the critical role diplomacy plays in keeping our country safe, secure, and strong.”
The incident, meanwhile, offered a test of new high-level channels opened during the nuclear talks between the two nations. Diplomatic relations between Washington and Tehran soured after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, and they were formally severed in April 1980, five months after militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took Americans hostage.
For hours — even as President Obama gave his annual State of the Union address — messages passed directly between Iran and Washington instead of the intermediary nations used for decades. The exchanges included Kerry reaching out to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was Iran’s point man during the nuclear talks, said a senior U.S. official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Kerry “made the case very strongly” to Zarif that the incident had stemmed from a mechanical problem aboard one of the boats and that they appeared to have drifted into Iranian territorial waters, the official said.
Zarif asked for more information about the incident, which the State Department later communicated to Iran. Zarif, the official said, “came back and said they were all safe and sound, that nobody was hurt,” and that Iran would “return them promptly.”
In other words, crisis was averted largely because the Secretary of State was able to talk directly to Iran’s Foreign Minister, who apparently wasn’t even aware of the incident at the time that he first spoke to Secretary Kerry but nonetheless was able to get on top of the situation quickly enough that rival factions within the Iranian Government, specifically the Revolutionary Guard, which controls the island where the sailors were brought, didn’t act in a manner that needlessly escalated the situation. In the wake of the quick release, some observers are crediting the Iran nuclear deal, or at least the working relationship it helped establish between Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Zarif, with making it possible for the release to happen so quickly. In that regard, it’s worth noting that the nuclear deal itself is scheduled to enter its next implementation phase later this week, a fact which many are suggesting caused the Iranians to act as quickly as they did in releasing the sailors so as not to delay any further the beginning of the process that will result in the nation gain access to billions of dollars in currently frozen assets pursuant to the deal.
The fact that these sailors were released within less than 24 hours after they were taken into custody stands in stark contrast to past incidents in this area of the Persian Gulf, where Iran has jealously guarded its territorial claims, many of which are not necessarily recognized under international law. In 2007, for example fifteen British sailors who were searching a vessel in waters Iran claimed as its own were detained by the Revolutionary Guard for thirteen days before being released, an incident that seriously strained relations between Iran and the United Kingdom at the time. In other incidents, Iranian forces have fired warning shots at vessels they claimed were in Iranian waters and taken other aggressive steps to enforce their claims to waters that may or may not actually be valid. Compared to these incidents, the relatively swift release of the American sailors and their equipment, apparently in good health and good working order, stands as an exception to past Iranian behavior that could potentially be a sign that the situation in the Persian Gulf may be bit less tense in the future when it comes to incidents like this. Whether this is solely because of the nuclear deal, or a sign of less tense relations between Iran and the West is as yet unclear, but whatever the reason it’s certainly a welcome development that these sailors were released so swiftly.
None of this is to suggest, of course, that Iran has suddenly become a trustworthy actor on the world stage. Just as was the case in the wake of the final ratification of the nuclear deal, there is still much about the behavior of the Iranian regime, including the fact that it continues to back rogue nations like Syria along with terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas, that suggests strongly that we need to be wary of Iran. The bellicose rhetoric of the mullahs toward Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other nations is also a cause for concern, especially since it is ultimately the Ayatollah Khameni, and not seeming moderates such as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who is the decision maker when it comes to all Iranian policy. Additionally, Iran continues to hold Washington Post Reporter Jason Rezaian and other American on trumped-up charges such as espionage and their fate is something that the U.S. Government ought to be taking very seriously. Finally, as we saw just law week, the rivalry between Iran and long time U.S. ally Saudi Arabia threatens to turn the Persian Gulf into a global flash point yet again, something that would have profound implications across the world.
In addition to this well-founded doubts about Iran, the facts behind what happened yesterday remain somewhat unclear and deserve investigation. The Navy said early on that mechanical problems caused the boats to drift from their planned course, but it’s also not exactly clear if they were seized in clearly defined Iranian waters, or if the Iranians seized an opportunity to grab the boats in international waters to create an incident, which is something not out of question for the Revolutionary Guard. Presumably, there will be an investigation by the Navy now that the sailors are safe and it will be interesting to see what that uncovers. Additionally, while it appears the sailors were treated well while in Iranian custody it remains unknown if any of them were subjected to undue pressure, a suspicion that is now being raised in the wake of the release of an “apology” video made by one of the sailors while still in custody.
Despite all of this, though, and as both Daniel Drezner and Daniel Larison note today, all of the facts available to us indicate that this incident was resolved as expeditiously and as quickly as possible under the circumstances, and that we largely have diplomacy to thank for that. Or, as Larison put it:
In the absence of the deal and the diplomatic contacts that were created through the negotiating process, it is probable that it would have taken much longer to get the sailors released. This episode reminds us of the value of keeping open diplomatic channels, and that value only increases when it involves regimes with which the U.S. has generally poor and adversarial relations. If the U.S. and Iran had normal diplomatic relations, it is likely that more serious incidents and problems could be resolved in a similar fashion or even headed off in advance. Failing that, it would be folly to throw away the fruits of successful negotiations with Iran, and that is what Iran hawks insisted on in response to this easily-solved problem.
Restoring full diplomatic relations between the Islamic Republic and the United States would be an ideal outcome, but it’s likely to be one fraught with complications. Even with the resolution of the nuclear deal, there remain a whole host of issues between the two nations that would likely have to be resolved before an exchange of Ambassadors could take place, not the least of them being the long list of claims for monetary damages on both sides resulting from the break in diplomatic and trade ties in the late 1970s. The issue also carries an emotional resonance with it in the United States, of course, given the lingering memories of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. As this incident demonstrates, though, having open diplomatic channels is one way to resolve misunderstandings before they escalate into crises. Furthermore, while it’s true that there are many conflicting claims between the U.S. and Iran that need to be resolved, this has been true of many other nations in the past and this has not stopped us from having a full diplomatic relationship with the governments in question. Indeed, having that relationship could be the key to resolving those claims in the future.
It’s easy to understand why, for political and other reasons, the initial response of many people to yesterday’s reports about the seizure of two American patrol boats led to calls for an aggressive response. As we saw, though, using diplomacy to address the situation usually makes a lot more sense then an immediate aggressive response, even if it doesn’t play as well with the crowds. Or, as Winston Churchill once put it, it is better to jaw jaw than to war war, meaning that initial responses to international incidents should typically default to trying to resolve them through diplomatic channels rather than taking aggressive steps that threaten to inflame a crisis. If diplomacy doesn’t work, then obviously other options should be considered, but as we saw with this incident diplomacy is almost always worth the effort.
