It is not yet clear who ordered the arrest of 15 British sailors in the Persian Gulf, or what their motives were. But Tehran has shown it does not fear raising the stakes in its war of nerves with the West, writes Ramita Navai
As Iran judders towards confrontation with the West, at a time when it is already embroiled in an escalating nuclear crisis, there seems to be confusion behind the scenes.
On Thursday, Tehran withdrew an earlier offer to release leading seaman Faye Turney, the only woman of the 15 sailors and marines captured on a routine patrol in the Persian Gulf.
And while Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki recently said, "Iran welcomes any constructive suggestions to solve the issue bilaterally", he has also been quoted as saying Britain was "trying to politicise and make propaganda out of the issue, and such behaviour is not acceptable". Noticeably absent from the storm is outspoken Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, leading some to believe he has been ordered into silence by the clerical leadership who fear his hardline rhetoric would fan the flames of the mounting crisis.
Over the past few months Iran has had its vulnerabilities exposed, and has been feeling the strain of increasing pressure, with sanctions, abductions and an encroaching American presence on its doorstep.
Already surrounded by American military bases in neighbouring countries, Iran now has a new American aircraft carrier to contend with, which has parked itself in the Persian Gulf.
Iran is also experiencing what it sees as a spill-over from the war in Iraq into its territory, with violent attacks by Sunni extremists in the oil-rich province of Khuzestan, an Arab minority area which borders Iraq. Iran claims that American and British forces are arming Arab separatist movements there.
The day before the British marines and sailors were captured, the UN Security Council slapped tough new sanctions on Iran for failing to halt uranium enrichment, a process the West says Iran is using to build a nuclear bomb.
In January, five members of Iran's elite al-Quds Brigade, part of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and an embassy second secretary, Jalal Sharafi, were abducted during a US raid on an Iranian diplomatic office in Iraq.
Some analysts in Iran are saying that the capture of the British could be collateral for a bargaining chip to secure the release of the seized Iranian officials. Others are saying Iran is testing the water for a confrontation, seeing how far they can push the West, and how strong an allied reaction would be to Iran.
However, Iran's actions demonstrate more than just a show of tit-for-tat and strategy-making. By capturing the British servicemen, Iran is sending out a warning shot to the West, not only to keep out of its backyard, but to show the world it can retaliate if it needs to.
"Iran is saying, you can attack us, you can put sanctions on us but we won't buckle. We're still strong enough to waltz across the water and pick up your boys. And there's little you can do about it," said one Tehran-based analyst.
But that is only if the capture was planned and supported by all factions of the country's ruling parties, and at the crux of this is a question: who made the decision to take the British servicemen - was it the IRGC, or the Supreme National Security Council, the country's top foreign policy body led by nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani?
THE IRGC IS directly controlled by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the man who decides foreign policy in Iran. Accused by the US of supplying material to Iraqi insurgents which was then used for killing American soldiers, the IRGC's clandestine activities often put it at loggerheads with Iran's foreign ministry. Ahmadinejad is a former revolutionary guardsman, and is responsible for giving the IRGC more independence than it has enjoyed in many years. If the IRGC are behind the capture of the marines, they are asserting their power and, although it would be impossible for pragmatists in the regime to oppose them, the foreign ministry will be attempting to heal this latest rupture in Iran's relations with the West.
But if the decision was made by the Supreme National Security Council, the West is dealing with a very different ball-game, and a more sinister one at that. It would mean that the issue is not about factionalism; on the contrary, Iran's political apparatus would have made a joint, unified decision on whether it was going to engage in a new, aggressive foreign policy drive that would set the country on a collision course with Britain and the US.
In a speech in Mashad, in north-east Iran, Khamenei warned of the consequences if Iran's nuclear rights were not acknowledged by the United Nations.
"We have so far conducted our nuclear programmes under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but misusing the UN Security Council as an instrument for realising political merits will have detrimental consequences," Khamenei said.
"If they [the West] want to act outside legal frameworks and not acknowledge our legitimate rights, then we can and will do the same."
This speech has been interpreted by some analysts in Tehran as a green light to adopt an aggressive, confrontational stance to the West.
"Whether he meant it as a call not to back away from battle or not, that's how it will be interpreted by people in the Revolutionary Guard," the Tehran-based analyst said.
Britain has found itself backed into a corner it cannot get out of. As the crisis escalates, negotiating tactics have swiftly descended into face-saving exercises on both sides.
Now the Iranians have called for an apology, they have raised the stakes and cannot climb down without looking weak in the eyes of the world and ruining a potential muscle-flexing exercise. At the same time, British prime minister Tony Blair's incensed reaction has made a more gentle diplomatic approach, employed in 2004 when British servicemen were captured in the Shatt al-Arab waterway, an impossibility.
THE IRANIANS HAVE made it clear that they will only release their captives if Britain apologises - which is about as likely as the Iranians halting uranium enrichment because the US has told them to do so.
The only way out, it seems, is mediation, quite a task in itself, given Iran's increasing isolation from the international community. Turkey has offered to be a broker and is, supposedly, talking to the Iranians. But whether this crisis has been simply a series of diplomatic blunders or a premeditated tactical ploy is not known - not yet, anyway.