Iran is flexing its muscles but might overplay its hand, writes Mustafa El-Labbad This past March marked a particularly fraught time in relation to the four-year old Iranian nuclear crisis. It brought with it the first open negotiations between Washington and Tehran, in Baghdad, over the future of Iraq. However, these were quickly followed by yet another UN Security Council Resolution 1747, strengthening sanctions in order to force Iran to halt its uranium enrichment activities. Iranian Republican Guard naval forces further upped the ante considerably and dramatically increased tensions in the area after they intercepted a 15-member British naval squad, ostensibly for having violated Iranian territorial waters, and transferred them to Tehran. However, what appeared to be an imminent crisis of major proportions was defused following urgent diplomatic meetings between the Iranians and British following which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad announced yesterday in a news conference that the marines and sailors would be released immediately and taken to the airport. Ahmedinejad, ever the master of political brinkmanship, however, repeated his allegations that the "marines had invaded Iranian waters" but said they would be freed as "a gift to Britain". During the conference he awarded medals to the commanders who captured the British personnel. The wily Iranian leader also attempted to score some political points by attacking the American invasion of Iraq and criticising countries he accused of being behind the misery and destruction of the world. This confrontation had only a sole precedent, which occurred in 2004. Further aggravating tensions were leaks from Russia that lent weight to predictions of an imminent military strike against Iranian nuclear installations. The leaks gave a specific date of Friday, 6 April. The parallel approaches to the crisis -- the one conciliatory, the other confrontational -- and how quickly the situation can shift from one to the other was apparent. Washington has plunged headlong into a conflict over spheres of influence and strategic interests with a particularly tough adversary, unmatched since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990. As regards Somalia, Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq, the US was able to conduct its military and political battles with relative ease. This is not the case with Iran, which has vast oil reserves, a strong vantage point over the Gulf and a network of regional alliances. Additionally, it possesses a political cunning capable of drawing on these assets with the greatest dexterity, while simultaneously capitalising upon the Bush administration's quagmire in Iraq. True, the American military machine by far outstrips Iran's, but with the cards it has, Iran at least has the deterrent power to make Washington think twice, before resorting to the military option, as it has so readily done in other conflicts. Given the strength of the Iranian hand and the weakness of the Americans, regarding the quagmire of Iraq, Resolution 1747 cannot be judged purely in terms of its potential efficacy -- or lack thereof -- in forcing Iran to bend to the will of the members of the Security Council. Indeed, the symbolism and legitimacy of the resolution considerably outweighs its political and economic impact. It is important to bear in mind that this resolution comes on top of Resolution 1737 of last year, which effectively pulled the rug out from under Tehran's legal argument for refusing to abandon its uranium enrichment programme, entirely shifting the lines of debate. Since then, the central issue has not been whether or not Iran has the right to enrich uranium, but how exactly to force Iran to comply with UN demands. Resolution 1747 crowns this development. The sanctions it imposes against various individuals and institutions associated with the Iranian Republican Guard may constitute a notching up of the pressure. More significant, however, is the fact that they represent the resolve of the "international community" to prevent Iran from harnessing a full nuclear fuel cycle. After all, the Security Council, like it or not, is the highest authority of the UN, which has embodied "international legitimacy" since the end of World War II. The Security Council has given Tehran two months to comply with 1747, after which we can expect yet another incremental tightening of the noose. It is not surprising, therefore, that, in tandem with developments in the Security Council, Iran exacerbated tensions by smuggling surface-to-air missiles into Iraq. A few days after which seven American helicopters were downed. It held naval manoeuvres in the Gulf, during which it inaugurated a new submarine. Following the dramatic capture and subsequent release of the British naval squad, the zeal with which the Iranians went after the British pontoon suggests that they knew they could turn this incident into a coup. Through it, they drove home the message that any explicit or tacit understanding between Tehran and Washington would have to secure Iranian interests (oil, influence and territorial waters) in the Iraqi south if it secures American interests in the north. Second, by forcing London to enter into direct negotiations over the release of the captured marines and sailors, Iran succeeded in breaking out of its international isolation. Third, Iran used the incident to refocus public attention on national security priorities and rally Iranians once again behind the Ahmadinejad government, which had been seriously damaged by resolutions 1737 and 1747. This said, Iran's bout of muscle-flexing in the Gulf is not, in itself, enough to lure Washington to the negotiating table over the nuclear issue. Simultaneously, the Iranians should be wary of letting the American quagmire in Iraq lure them into overestimating their strength, or overplaying their hand. Frank evaluation of the Iranian situation today would acknowledge that Tehran's negotiating position has begun to erode as a result of resolutions 1737 and 1747, which have laid it open to the prospect of even harsher sanctions that will further weaken its bargaining power in any bilateral talks with the US. Iran has deftly succeeded in filling the regional vacuum, due to America's policy in the Middle East. However, Iran lacks the asset that, in the case of North Korea, has proven vital in any confrontation with the superpower, and that is actual nuclear warheads. It is only this,that has the power to rule out the military option, leaving negotiations as the only available route. Iran, in other words, has a good hand which it generally plays well. But it doesn't hold the trump.
