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If anything symbolised the degree to which Tony Blair's adventurous foreign policy has embroiled Britain in dangerous, unpredictable conflicts and wholly unintended consequences, it was the juxtaposition of joy and horror on Friday.
The television news channels ran endless footage of 15 sailors and Royal Marines, freed by Iran after a two-week hostage saga that had taken almost daily twists and turns. But scrolling across the bottom of the screens was the news that four other service personnel, two of them women, and an Iraqi interpreter had been killed by an explosion in southern Iraq, the worst British loss of life in a single incident there for several months. A fifth soldier remains in a critical condition.
With two other soldiers having been killed, and another badly hurt, by small arms attacks in Basra, it meant Britain had lost six troops in Iraq during a single week for the first time since June 2003. It brought the number killed in Iraq to 140, with 109 having died in combat. This was a shock to the public at home, whose attention had been diverted by the hostage crisis. No soldier had been killed in Basra for nearly a month, and the Government had announced that 1600 troops would shortly be withdrawn; the pullout will begin this month, leaving the remaining contingent at about 5500.
Any day now, British troops will hand over the Shatt al-Arab hotel, one of their last forward operating bases in central Basra, to their Iraqi counterparts.
But last week's deaths, and the fact that one of the women killed was a close friend of Prince William - Second Lieutenant Joanna Yorke Dyer was at Sandhurst with him - emphasised that Iraq remains unfinished business. Not only that: it leaves Britain entangled with Iran in a relationship far more complicated and sinister than the wranglings over the sailors and Marines seized in the Gulf. In time, the latter episode will come to be seen as a minor part of a much wider struggle.
Forced to react to both events at the same time, the Prime Minister spoke of the welcome return of the captured servicemen and one woman, "safe and unharmed", before turning to the "sober and ugly reality" of Iraq. It was far too early to say that any elements of the Iranian regime had been involved in the Basra attack, but "the general picture ... is that there are elements at least of the Iranian regime, that are backing, financing, arming, supporting terrorism in Iraq".
This is an accusation that has been made regularly in the past four years, but in the absence of specific proof, such claims tend to fade away after an initial flurry. Basra's police chief said the device that destroyed a Warrior armoured vehicle, killing most of its occupants, had not been seen in the area before, and was a shaped charge of the kind the US has accused Iran of supplying to insurgents further north. British military sources did not confirm his claim, however.
What Blair was at pains not to say in his reaction was that neither the hostage drama nor the bombing in Basra would have happened if he had not taken the decision to invade Iraq in partnership with President George Bush in 2003. For television viewers, what linked the two events was the glee of Iraqis and Iranians at having British forces at their mercy.
In Basra, local people smilingly held up trophies, including an Army helmet, after the explosion. In Tehran, it was the sight of Faye Turney and her 14 male colleagues having to thank the hardline Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for graciously agreeing to forgive their transgressions and let them go. Both spectacles would have heightened doubts about why we are still in Iraq - doubts that will not have been allayed by the familiar assurances of an outgoing Prime Minister that going there was "the right thing to do".
For all Blair's insistence that Britain had not negotiated or been humiliated, the outcome of the naval crisis will add to the impression that the Iraq adventure has weakened not merely his position, but that of the country. That is uncomfortable when so many other issues need to be resolved with Iran, not least the world's fears that it is seeking to make nuclear weapons, despite its angry claims to be exercising its right to develop civil nuclear power.
Now that the hostages are home, there will be concerns in Whitehall that Iran will seek to press its propaganda advantage on the nuclear issue, with an announcement expected at a nuclear facility tomorrow. One senior source said ruefully: "They caught us on the hop when they seized our guys, and now they have caught us on the hop the way they have been freed."
Dealing with the Tehran regime and its passive-aggressive approach to the rest of the world has never been easy. But Britain, which is about to dispatch Prince Harry into the dangerous environment of southern Iraq, where Iran has unquestioned influence, is compelled to grit its teeth and do its best. Explaining this to a public which is already bemused about the reasons for Britain's continued presence in Iraq is another matter.
- INDEPENDENT
