That the 15 British navy crew were released and safely set foot back on home soil on Maundy Thursday was indeed good news.

Thirteen days are too short in human history. Had Tony Blair not been held back by his cabinet colleagues, particularly Chancellor Gordon Brown, who is expected to be crowned at Downing Street later this year, the world might have been holding its breadth in the face of a possible war by now.

With the current prime minister on his way out, a war on Iran could potentially sabotage beyond rescue one of the longest plans of succession in Britain's political history. A war-weary cabinet has wisely opted for peaceful solution to a crisis of this scale. Such is the beauty of a truly collective and responsible cabinet, with the PM being only the first among the equals.

Pretty much unlike what we see in Malaysia where the executive powers are heavily concentrated in just a handful of decision-makers, including even princelings from outside the government!

It was also interesting to see US President George Bush resort to saber-rattling over the issue, assuring Blair of Washington's commitment to the special relationship, struggling to not appear too gleeful at the prospect of military action against Tehran. Too bad, the dove now soars, while the hawk is tamed.

Blair, of course, would still insist the 15 sailors were in Iraqi waters when picked up by the Iranians. The truth is, there are no internationally agreed boundaries in that area, as rightly pointed out by the Financial Times , leaving both sides to dispute the fact.

The BBC has reported that the note sent by the British Foreign Office to Tehran 'included an offer to hold discussions to clarify the border line to avoid problems in future'. If this is so, all the hawkish rhetoric in the past two weeks has been totally unnecessary.

Moral high ground

I have been following news reports and comments in the British press rather closely since the incident took place, and am still amazed at how national sentiments could be so easily fanned up.

Many blamed the European Union for failing its duty to defend an ally in need, while conveniently forgetting that when the Blair government chose to go to war on Iraq, it too had put American interests ahead of those of the Europeans.

One certainly cannot discount that the 'pathetic' response of Europe to the crisis could well have been informed by the reality that the continent has vast oil and gas interests in Iran, plus the vitally important trade ties between the two.

Nevertheless, taking a moral high ground over Iran would not have worked when the Americans and the British too have records of illegal seizures of five Iranian diplomats in Erbil, northern Iraq.

One may argue that that raid was conducted within Iraqi territories and sanctioned by the Iraqi authorities. It was at least 'arguably legitimate'. Yet many Muslims still will continue to see Iraq as an occupied country so long as foreign forces are stationed there.

A shrewd populist, President Ahmadinejad has just won a publicity stunt by showing the world the footage of the British sailors being treated in a civil manner, with no black hoods over their heads. Neither were they chained and taunted as what had happened in Abu Ghraib.

No amount of effort to pacify the Muslim world will pay off as long as this negative perception towards the Western countries remains unchanged. Little wonder many a war strategist is now silent on the issue.

The damaged image now requires a more determined and just-minded civil society of the West to rebuild, and it is not helped by the presence of two US aircraft fleets just off the Iranian coast.

Too politically toned

I do, however, doubt the authenticity of the messages conveyed by Faye Turney, the only female sailor detained by the Iranians, to the British public. It was too politically toned to be genuine, to say the least.

She, like the rest of her colleagues, could well have been misinformed by her abductors. Anyway, I am truly glad that she is now reunited with her family.

But to accuse the Iranians of dirty tricks will be disingenuous too. Both Bush and Blair have fed the world and the media with disinformation in order to wage an illegal war.

However aghast at the acts of the Ahmadinejad administration I am, I will not put the blame solely on the Iranians.

Blair was perfectly correct when he said that the British soldiers were carrying out their duty around Basra with the authority of the United Nations, what has escaped him was the fact that no such authority was needed it was even snubbed when he and Bush were mulling over the war.

In short, policies of confrontation and double standards must cease before the wind can be taken out of the sails of the fanatic Mullahs that rule Iran and condone Ahmadinejad. The recent tussle between London and Tehran should serve as a valuable lesson indeed.