[Peace-discuss] Deescalate with Iran: Free the Irbil Five

[Robert Naiman]

Deescalate with Iran: Free the Irbil Five
Robert Naiman,  Just Foreign Policy, November 2, 2007

Here's a very modest step the United States could take to deescalate
tension with Iran and avoid war: free five Iranian officials that the
U.S. arrested in Iraq and has been detaining for the last 10 months.
This should be a no-brainer.

The U.S. military is mulling releasing them, and has been urged by the
State Department to do so, precisely because their continued detention
is an unnecessary provocation. The Los Angles Times reported
Wednesday:

...senior U.S. diplomats and military officers fear that an incident
on the ground in Iraq is a more likely trigger for a possible
confrontation with the Islamic Republic. In one sign of their concern,
U.S. military policymakers are weighing whether to release some of the
Iranian personnel they have taken into custody in Iraq. Doing so could
reduce the risk that radical Iranian elements might seize U.S.
military or diplomatic personnel to retaliate, thus raising the danger
of an escalation, a senior Defense official said.

According to former U.S. officials, the Times reports, when U.S.
forces seized five Iranians in January from Iran's northern consular
office in Irbil, in Kurdish Iraq, their real goal was to pick up a
senior official of the Revolutionary Guard Corps who they believed was
with the group. The U.S. has kept the five Iranians in jail all year,
despite the protests of Iraqi and Iranian officials, and despite the
urgings of some State Department officials and U.S. allies to free
them.

But now, says the Times, U.S. officials appear to be coming to the
conclusion that it is not worth holding some of the less valuable
captives if it risks retaliation. "It might be useful to cut them
loose so [the Iranians] don't have an excuse to pick up someone as a
bargaining chip," said the senior Defense official.

So, if we want to avoid unnecessary provocation with Iran, we should
release these Iranian officials, according to a senior U.S. Defense
official. Here's another reason to release the Iranian officials: the
Iraqi government has called for their release. The Iraqi government is
supposedly a sovereign government - so we have been informed by the
Bush Administration. If the Iraqi government is sovereign, then the
Iraqi government gets to decide to invite Iranian officials to their
country, and whether such officials should be arrested or released.
The U.S. has put pressure on its Arab allies to respect the
sovereignty of the Iraqi government. How about setting a good example
by respecting the sovereignty of the Iraqi government ourselves?

Here's another reason to release the Iranian officials: Iraq and Iran
say the Iranian officials were "credentialed diplomats." The U.S.
disputes this. Is it really in the interest of the U.S. to play
hairsplitting games about who is entitled to the protection of
international treaties concerning diplomats? Seems like that's just
the sort of thing that could come back to bite us.

Finally, whatever the initial justifications for detaining these
officials, after 10 months, there is no justification for holding them
now. Whatever intelligence the U.S. can gain from them has already
been gained. The notion of putting them on trial would be absurd, and
therefore they must be released. Why not be done with it?

The Bush Administration, while it has cranked up tensions with Iran,
assures us that they are not seeking war. This would be a great
opportunity for them to prove it. Free the Irbil Five.

Tell Congress: Free the Irbil Five
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/freeiranians.html

-- 
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org