As we feared, the Iranians are playing the hostage game they know so well. Vague promises of release of captives, followed by outrageous demands and reversals based on some ad hoc excuse, is all intended to play on the nerves of captives, governments and the people alike. The UK is now taking the case to the UN Security Council, which is more or less all it can do at this point.
Britain took its case to free its 15 sailors and marines held by Iran to the United Nations on Thursday, asking the Security Council to support a statement that would "deplore" Tehran's action and demand their immediate release.
But Security Council diplomats said the statement circulated by Britain's U.N. Mission is likely to face problems from Russia and others because it says the Britons were "operating in Iraqi waters" — a point that Iran contests.
The British move came as Iran rolled back on its promise to release Faye Turney, the sole female British sailor among the captives, and that a senior Iranian official suggested all of them may be put on trial.
Iran's military chief, Gen. Ali Reza Afshar, said that because of the "wrong behavior" of the British government, "the release of a female British soldier has been suspended," the semiofficial Iranian news agency Mehr reported.
The standoff and broader tensions in the Gulf region helped fuel a spike in world oil prices.
It now appears to be more and more likely that the capture was deliberate and preplanned. That is the worst kind of news, because in that case the Iranians obviously have a plan for using the hostages.
The British sailors and marines being held by Iran were ambushed at their most vulnerable moment, while climbing down the ladder of a merchant ship and trying to get into their bobbing inflatables.
Out of sight of their warship and without any helicopter cover, their only link to their commanders was a communications device beaming their position by satellite. [...]
The speed and cunning shown by the Revolutionary Guards has raised suspicions that their action was premeditated. A senior military officer described it as “deliberate”.
It took only three minutes for the Iranians, moving at 40 knots, to move from their legitimate positions monitoring shipping in their waters to come alongside the British last Friday morning.
The British defence ministry yesterday released very convincing evidence that the boats were indeed in Iraqi waters. And Iran initially admitted this, possibly unintentionally.
From the start, the Iranian Ambassador to London gave British diplomats a set of coordinates for the location of the confrontation.
Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, told the Iranian Foreign Minister that these compass points actually indicated a spot clearly in Iraqi waters. She tried to give Iran an exit route by suggesting that it might all be a misunderstanding that could be resolved by an immediate release of the captives.
On Sunday, the helicopter from HMS Cornwall flew back over the Indian vessel, which was still anchored and had drifted only slightly. A photograph was taken of an airman holding a GPS device. The coordinates on this picture, the MoD insists, prove that the Britons were comfortably within Iraqi waters when captured.
On Monday, Iran surprised Britain by coming up with a “corrected” set of coordinates. “The two Iranian positions are just under a nautical mile apart, 1,800 yards or so,” Vice-Admiral Charles Style, a Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff, said yesterday.
Being right doesn't help very much in this case.
9:28:05 PM 
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