EDITORIAL: End Hostage Standoff: Try for a Prisoner Exchange to Avoid Widening the British-Iranian D

Mar 31, 09:06 AM

Current Headlines: By Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

Mar. 31--Great Britain now has its very own hostage crisis, along with an ever-louder war of words with Iran's ayatollahs. Both nations are raising the heat under the diplomatic and propaganda maneuvers surrounding Iran's capture of 15 British Royal Navy sailors in a disputed zone of the Shatt al-Arab waterway between Iraq and Iran.

The obvious danger is that this confrontation, coming at a time Tehran feels it is under growing international pressure over its nuclear program, might become the trigger for an escalation that could get out of hand. It could spark a larger conflict in a volatile region already put on edge by the Iraq war.

Averting such an escalation would require a rapid cooling off of tempers in Britain and Iran, but a resolution of the dispute might also involve the United States. Iran's motive for what is clearly an unjustified seizure of British sailors is murky at best. But the most promising lead may be the possibility that Iran is angling for a swap of prisoners: releasing the British sailors in exchange for five Iranian diplomats, seized by U.S. troops in Iraq. The diplomats are accused of providing military aid to Shia militias in Iraq.

U.S. commanders would have to agree to release the Iranian captives, with the consent of the Iraqi government, in an exchange for the British hostages. Internationally, diplomats caught in similar situations are routinely sent home. Iranian leaders, however, have made no official mention of such a swap, insisting instead on a public apology from London for entering Iranian waters without permission.

For Britain, the crisis carries echoes of a 2004 incident in which eight British servicemen on patrol in the same disputed waters were seized by Iran and released three days later, after making a televised apology for straying into Iran.

Such a televised mea culpa already came Friday, when a member of the captured crew, Nathan Thomas Summers, apologized in a broadcast on Iranian television for "trespassing" in Iranian waters. If that's what it takes to resolve a potentially dangerous crisis, then all to the good. A prisoner swap might better seal the rift. Allowing the conflict to spin out of control would be madness for all involved.

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Copyright (c) 2007, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

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