Yesterday’s dramatic news that US forces were searching for the crew of an F-15 fighter jet, apparently downed by a missile over southern Iran, will serve as a brutal wake-up call to the American public.
Iranian media reports of an airborne rescue mission being mounted to locate two missing flyers are bound to trigger chilling echoes of the 1979 hostage crisis when 66 US citizens, including diplomats and civilian personnel, were seized by a mob that stormed the American embassy in Tehran.
Coming not long after the psychological scarring of the Vietnam war, the 444-day crisis, which included a failed military attempt to free the hostages, was a catastrophic blow to American power and prestige.
Thankfully we learned yesterday that one crewman, who had ejected from the stricken aircraft, was swiftly picked up by a rescue squad. But as darkness fell, concern was growing for the whereabouts of the other flyer.
And with the Iranian regime offering a bounty for the capture of the serviceman, the war, which began five weeks ago today, is entering a perilous and unpredictable path.
If the forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) detain the missing crew member first, then America could find itself plunged into a fresh crisis.
I have some experience of how this might play out after Iran seized six Royal Marines and two Royal Navy seamen on the Shatt al-Arab waterway between Iraq and Iran in 2004. As the UK’s deputy ambassador, I was despatched to the Iranian port of Bandar-e Mahshahr to negotiate their release.
There was one big difference from today – Britain was not at war with Iran. And after years of popular protest and weeks of key leaders being killed, the regime has become less coherent and less predictable.
US forces have been searching for the crew of an F-15 fighter jet, which was apparently downed by a missile over southern Iran
Images of the wreckage from a downed US fighter jet appear to show a ‘Europe’ logo
Nevertheless, I am certain there will be some similarities in how things play out.
Central to negotiating with Iran is to recognise that the regime, despite all the damage meted out by President Trump, is single minded and fixated only on its own survival.
Despite the blood-curdling sabre-rattling that comes out of Tehran, it is not suicidal, and ultimately it is pragmatic, acting rationally in its own interests.
It also has an acute sense of the need to create leverage against its enemies, which is why it is behaving as it is over the Strait of Hormuz and firing rockets and drones at its Middle East neighbours. At the same time the Iranian regime will want to appear to the world as the wronged party in this conflict.
Which brings us on to how it might treat a captured American pilot. Might the flyer be killed? It is highly unlikely, as the Iranians will want to keep them alive for maximum leverage.
But given the unpredictability of the regime at the moment, it cannot be ruled out.
The elimination of so many at the top by US strikes makes the calculation more difficult. Authority to make decisions has been devolved to local IRGC commanders, who may take a much more aggressive and uncompromising stance towards their prisoners. This might be physical mistreatment, but more likely it will be emotional.
Twenty-two years ago, the British military detained by the IRGC I was sent to negotiate over were blindfolded, marched into the desert and subjected to mock execution.
Unable to see, they believed they were about to be shot.
They were also forced to read scripts to cameras apologising for their ‘crime’ of entering Iranian waters. All these actions by the Tehran regime were in breach of international law. With an American prisoner, similar treatment is likely, along with isolation and sleep deprivation.
Will any US detainee be tortured? Again, unlikely given the Iranian regime’s preference for occupying the moral high ground. But local commanders might be capable of committing violence against a hostage.
There will undoubtedly be tensions within the Iranian hierarchy between those advocating humiliation of their greatest enemy and those wanting to show a humane face to the watching world.
One thing I am certain of is that the Iranian regime will want to parade their captured trophy for propaganda purposes as soon as possible. My guess is they would keep the prisoner at an undisclosed location, probably an IRGC barracks, having removed anything that might identify its whereabouts to US or Israeli intelligence.
There is one other factor: the Iranian regime is patient. They will be content to let a stand-off over a hostage last for months, even years, as they extract the maximum price and grind down the will of their adversary.
Today America has a very different sort of leader from Jimmy Carter in 1979. In Donald Trump we have a highly capricious president and the Iranians will find it is almost impossible to second guess what he might do.
In the meantime, the memory of the crisis nearly 50 years ago and former president Carter’s bungled rescue mission will haunt every hour until the flyer is brought home.
- Matthew Gould was deputy and acting ambassador to Iran between 2003 and 2005.
