Iran: sussed it out

1. How easily the Brits were allowed to be captured!
2. How disappointed is Blair et al at Iran's behaviour? the treatment of the Brits - especially how the British people have viewed the whole situation.
3. The Iranians reacted to the 'crisis' in a manner that contradicts the demonised view the west protrays.
4. With centuries of colonial experience, the Iranians have learned quite a bit about Britain.
5. Iran continues to pose an economic threat in the oil/dollar monopoly while enjoying its new found status in the middle east (Shia dominance in Iraq) and its encouraging partners (Russia, China, etc) watch on with interest.

From what I understand, the Shat-al-Arab waterway was granted to Iraq in 1975. The Iranians have never recognized that and continue to lay claim to that region.

So the Iranians were technically in the right according to their long-standing territorial boundary claims and seized the sailors for border violations accordingly. But the claims by the UK that they were actually in Iraqi waters is also technically in the right by definition of the 1975 Iraqi accord.

The Iranians have shown themselves to be willing to take the diplomatic route and correctly guessed that the UK would also take the same stance...I'd like to think that were the situation reversed, and the Iranian naval personnel were captures and held, the diplomatic outcome would have been very much the same.

What we are witnessing is Game-Theory and brinksmanship being played at the very highest levels given the economic (ie: oil) stakes at hand.