Tools of the State(s)?

It seemed a neat little feat. The Iranians appear to have used the captured sailors as a tool of state PR, the British MoD went one further and allowed the media to produce an independent rebuttal and pay the former captives for the pleasure. While now it seems they have pulled the plug on the venture, as two have already been paid the stories are out. So perhaps it is a neat little feat after all. Faye Turney's fee of £100,000 for appearing on Tonight with Trevor McDonald and giving an exclusive to The Sun (and why not), secures the story in the limelight and that 'the truth' will be broadcast. Given the media training offered but the MoD this may well be the spin-processed version and will paint the picture HMG wants; this makes the role of services personnel as a 'weapon of the war' as quite different.

Hostages to rhetoric

The sailors by the captured Iranians were hostages, its official. Not only do the media use the term but a senior chief of staff on BBC lunchtime news. The definition of hostage however is a prisoner who is held by one party to insure that another party will meet specified terms. But there was no deal! Ergo, they were not hostages! Or is there something we are not being told? It may suit the anti-Iran themes to describe them in this way but it obscures the issues completely. Maybe there was a deal, maybe their release was a PR stunt that will be used as a lever later, or maybe the terminology is just media driven hype. What are the facts here?

Ahmadinejad and State PR

The somewhat bizarre way that the British sailors were released by Iran yesterday demonstrates that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the real political power that lies behind the public face of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, knows a thing or two about perception management. As my friend Roman comments, not a bad 10 days work.

Iranians made several points yesterday; Ahmadinejad's speech was a largely an anti-western polemic, within that he neatly tied together hostility to the Iraq war, their position on nuclear weapons and the British sailor's alleged incursion into Iraqi waters. But then, in the spirit of the religious festivals Ahmadinejad gave the grand, generous gesture.

Then the stage managed greeting of the captives reinforced the perception of the nation as forgiving, in the right in some way, while also providing a possible bargaining tool for later negotiations. It brings to mind an apocryphal story that may well be true. George W. and Carl Rove were discussing the President's image. Rove tells Bush that many of the people in Europe think he is an idiot; Bush's response "so what, they don't vote for me". Rove then carefully explained the importance of having international support. Iraq may not have won too much public support yesterday but the intention was there; and perhaps Ahmadinejad prove he does PR better than George W.