Robert Naiman

Here's a very modest step the United States could take to deescalate tension with Iran and avoid war: free five Iranian officials that the U.S. arrested in Iraq and has been detaining for the last 10 months. This should be a no-brainer.

First of all, the U.S. military is mulling releasing them, and has been urged by the State Department to do so, precisely because their continued detention is an unnecessary provocation. The Los Angles Times reported Wednesday:

...senior U.S. diplomats and military officers fear that an incident on the ground in Iraq is a more likely trigger for a possible confrontation with the Islamic Republic. In one sign of their concern, U.S. military policymakers are weighing whether to release some of the Iranian personnel they have taken into custody in Iraq. Doing so could reduce the risk that radical Iranian elements might seize U.S. military or diplomatic personnel to retaliate, thus raising the danger of an escalation, a senior Defense official said.

The article noted:

U.S. forces are themselves involved in high-risk operations considered provocative by Iranians and critics of the U.S. In January, when U.S. forces seized five Iranians from Iran's northern consular office in Irbil, Iraq, their real goal was to pick up a senior official of the Revolutionary Guard Corps who they believed was with the group, according to two former U.S. officials.

...

The Pentagon has insisted on keeping the five Iranians in jail all year, despite the protests of Iranian and Iraqi officials, and over the urgings of some State Department officials and U.S. allies. U.S. officials maintain that the five Iranians taken captive in Irbil were members of Iran's Quds Force, but Iraqi and Iranian officials insist they were credentialed diplomats.

...

But U.S. officials appear to be coming to the conclusion that it is not worth holding some of the less valuable captives if it risks retaliation. "It might be useful to cut them loose so [the Iranians] don't have an excuse to pick up someone as a bargaining chip," said the senior Defense official.

Here's another reason to release them: the Iraqi government has called for their release. The Iraqi government is sovereign, right? If the Iraqi government is sovereign, then they get to decide to invite Iranian officials to their country, and whether such officials should be arrested or released. The U.S. is putting pressure on its Arab allies to respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government. How about setting a good example by respecting the sovereignty of the Iraqi government ourselves?

Here's another reason: Iraq and Iran say the officials were "credentialed diplomats." The U.S. disputes this. Is it really in the interest of the U.S. to play hairsplitting games about who is entitled to the protection of international treaties concerning diplomats? Seems like that's just the sort of thing that could come back to bite us.

Tell Congress: Free the Irbil Five.