Iran must not be rewarded for releasing its hostages

Iran is obviously going to claim victory in its standoff with Great Britain over Iran's illegal seizure and detention of 15 British sailors and marines.
Certainly Iran scored a propaganda victory among those who already dislike or hate the West. And the incident was used to whip some of Iran's radicals into a frenzy outside the British Embassy in Tehran.
There is nothing much civilized nations can do about such behavior. But it is important that Iran not be rewarded for acting like a rogue nation or that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad be encouraged to believe that he can continue to get away with pursuing hostage diplomacy.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government did what little it could under the circumstances, seeking international support for its position that the crew had been illegally detained.
The prudent course
Those who called for military action seem to forget how seldom such a course has been pursued in hostage situations, and how small the odds for a successful military response are.
An attempt by President Jimmy Carter to end the first Iranian hostage crisis in 1980 with a military operation ended badly, and the hostages were held for 444 days.
Israel can claim one of the few successful rescues when commandoes extracted nearly 100 passengers from a plane being held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda in 1976. One commando and three hostages died in that attack (another hostage who was at a hospital was subsequently murdered by the Ugandans). All six hijackers and 45 Ugandan troops were killed.
But most of the time, nations rely on time and negotiations -- with varying results.
President Bush won the release of a U.S. crew of 24 that was held by China for 11 days in April 2001 after their surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter jet collided and the U.S. plane made an emergency landing in Chinese territory. The United States issued a letter of regret to end the standoff.
The seizure of the merchant ship Mayaguez off the Cambodian coast ended after three days in May 1975, with the release of the crew by the Khmer Rouge. But while the crew was being released, an assault was launched by President Gerald Ford on the island where the ship was anchored. Forty-one U.S. servicemen died, including three Marines who were left behind during evacuation of the troops. They were captured by the Khmer Rouge, tortured and killed over a period of about a week.
The U.S. spy ship Pueblo was seized by North Korea in January 1968. While President Lyndon Johnson negotiated for their release, the crew of 82 was imprisoned, starved and tortured for 11 months. Commander Lloyd M. Bucher confessed to having violated Korean territorial waters after his captors threatened to execute his crew in front of him. One member of the crew had been killed when the ship was taken captive.
The Pueblo remains a commissioned U.S. Naval vessel, though North Korea has turned it into a tourist attraction and a symbol of its "victory."
Muted celebration
Certainly, Great Britain is celebrating the return of its soldiers, but it can't be pleased with the crew's almost immediate capitulation to Iranian demands for public apologies. There were precious few stiff upper lips in evidence during the crew's detention. The British navy may want to take a fresh look at its training regimen and code of conduct.
On the diplomatic front, it is important to use Iran's disregard for international law as an example of why the United Nations must put increasing diplomatic and economic pressure on Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Iran, while it is the seat of one of the world's oldest cultures, is clearly not mature enough to behave in the modern world. Its destructive tantrums must not be rewarded.