Peak Oil Passnotes: Iran for All Seasons

The release of the fifteen British soldiers being held in Iran does not appear to be an isolated incident. Strangely both governments, while criticising each other, are both prepared to take that line in public. They would both like us to think it was an incident over a disputed line of control, at sea.

But this does not appear to be the case. It seems as if a number of factors moved Iran to keep the British soldiers for as long as they did. After all, Iran had hostages taken in Iraq. Firstly, the Iranian diplomat taken hostage, probably by the Iraqi army after a request by the U.S., has been released. Secondly, it appears the U.S. have conceded that the five Iranian diplomats arrested by them some weeks back in Irbil will be visited by Iranian authorities.


The taking of the hostages by Iran also appears to have been a local dispute seized upon by more right wing elements of the Iranian regime. After the British service people were arrested, whether they were inside Iranian waters or not, hard line elements in Iran saw the capture as a way of shoring up support at home.

The government of Ahmadinejad had been losing support inside Iran. Economically it has not been a success with continued large scale imports of gasoline stretching budgets. Amazingly Iran imports over $10 billion of gasoline each year, as it cannot refine its own crude products. It also imports a series of petrochemical products for the same reason.

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