Rooyesh

Already facing U.N. sanctions and speculation about a U.S. attack over its nuclear program, Iran’s capture of 15 British sailors and marines on March 23 had the makings of a new Middle East crisis that could spin dangerously out of control. So, Tehran’s decision to free the captives in what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called a “gift to the British people” was a notable victory for Iranian pragmatists over hard-liners — one that could even build momentum within Tehran’s power structure and in Western capitals for a diplomatic solution to the standoff over Iran’s uranium-enrichment program.

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