I had to read this “analysis” by AP’s Sally Buzzbee twice before I decided it was not a belated April Fool’s joke. In a word, outrageous:

Iran’s abrupt release of 15 British sailors and marines is raising hopes the country might compromise on other disputes, most notably its nuclear program.

The move points to the growing influence of pragmatic conservatives, a faction that backs Iran’s Islamic clerical leadership but is still willing to deal with the West — at least to ensure that the country is not harmed in its confrontations with the U.S. and its allies.

British media credited the breakthrough to Ali Larijani, Iran’s top foreign policy negotiator who leads its diplomatic efforts in dealing with a demand by the West for a freeze in Iranian uranium enrichment.

While a religious conservative, Larijani is seen as a pragmatist with close ties to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He and his allies, including former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, are less anti-Western than Iran’s hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

First, whose hopes are being raised by this stunning propaganda victory of the Iranians? My guess is the AP editorial board and Sally Buzzbee. You sure don’t see these “hopes” anywhere else in the western world:

The Bush administration said Thursday that the release of 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran for two weeks created no new openings in dealing with Tehran, and it urged American allies to return their attention to enforcing new sanctions against Iran.

In public statements and background interviews, White House and State Department officials said that they saw no indications that the release indicated a change of attitude by Iran’s leadership. Neither did they see any more willingness to discuss suspension of its enrichment of uranium — the requirement that President Bush has said Iran must meet before he is willing to accept talks with the country.

One senior official, who like some other officials who discussed the issue spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing internal assessments of Iran’s motivation, said that the administration’s internal assessment of the episode, while incomplete, suggested that the seizure of the Britons was “probably not directed from the upper reaches government.” The official said that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad decided on the release because “he understood that they had exploited whatever they could from the incident” and that “declaring them guilty and letting them go was the cleverest way to get out of it.”

And what about the growing influence of “pragmatists” as Buzzbee refers to them? She assures us that they are less “anti western” than Ahmadinejad. Specifically, she refers to former President Rafsanjani as in this camp and his him allied with the “conservative clerics” who run Iran.

I hate to disabuse Buzzbee and anyone else who thinks this way but it is imposslbe to rise as far in the Iranian leadership as Rafsanjani has without proving your anti-western credentials. How much “less” anti-western is Rafsanjani? As President, he began the secret Iranian nuclear program, using the services of the Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan and his nuclear black market during the 1990’s. The significance of this is simple; Khan doesn’t assist nations in creating uranium enrichment facilities in order to construct power plants. Every single client in Khan’s little black book has either successfully built or is striving to build a bomb. (Libya was forced to give up their bomb program when we caught them red handed.)

And Rafsanjani has never had a kind word to say about America, calling for our destruction on numerous occasions. You also don’t rise as far as he has in the leadership unless you are a fanatical hater of Israel.

Some pragmatist. Some moderate.

Don’t tell Buzzbee any of this, though. She’s on a roll:

The pragmatists also worry about the populism of Ahmadinejad and his backers that includes calls to redistribute wealth within Iran. Rafsanjani is a multimillionaire, and much recent criticism of Ahmadinejad by Iranian conservatives has centered on fears his strident rhetoric could hurt Iran’s economy and the status quo.

Yet if Larijani and his allies led the way in ending the faceoff with Britain, Ahmadinejad’s featured role during the release of the naval team seemed to indicate he was not completely brushed aside.

It is the struggle between hard-liners and pragmatists in the Islamic Republic that could give optimism only a brief life: As Iran headed back into talks with Europe on its nuclear program Thursday, it already was warning of retaliation if the West pushed too hard.

The mixed signals put the spotlight on a key conundrum about Iran — the question of who really calls the shots.

It is unclear whether Ahmadinejad himself cut Larijani and his friends off at the knees with this sudden move to release the hostages while they were busy trying to get the Brits to admit they were wrong or whether the decision was made in the Iranian National Security Council. Somehow, I think Larijani and his friends were blindsided by this decision which could point to a unilateral decision by Ahmadinejad to release the hostages that was okayed directly by Supreme Leader Khamenei. Ahmadinejad has his own power base in the Rev Guards and the fact that the leader of the Guards came out in favor of releasing the Brits without conditions while Larijani was in the process of negotiating could be significant.

But the question of “who calls the shots” in Iran is always fraught with uncertainty because of shifting alliances in the Assembly of Experts and the general perception that the Iranian president’s power is largely dependent on being in the good graces of Khamenei. Some western observers think that Khamenei knows that Ahmadinejad will be the last president on his watch as Supreme Leader. Rumors of ill health have dogged Khamenei for the better part of a year and it is thought he engineered Ahmadinejad’s victory over Rafsanjani to cleanse the revolution of endemic corruption. Rafsanjani, by the way, is not a “multi millionaire” as Buzzbee claims but rather a multi billionaire. Forbes Magazine named him one of the richest men in the world back in the 1990’s. Needless to say, you don’t make billions on a mullahs salary.

Ahmadinejad is in trouble with the elites not because of his anti-western rhetoric but because he has fired hundreds of technocrats in the ministries – conduits who funnel ill gotten gains to the leadership – and replaced them with true believers. To say that these “pragmatists” or “moderates” are interested in using negotiations with the west for any other purpose than to lull us into a false sense of security is absurd. Their goals are similar to those of Ahmadinejad, although they may disagree with him tacticly – especially when it comes to the rhetoric coming out of Iran. The mullahs have studied the western press and people closely and realize that making occassional noises about “reform” or diplomatic openings plays much better than vowing to wipe Israel off the map or sponsoring Holocaust denial conferences.

I doubt whether we wll ever know exactly how the internal decision was reached to release the hostages. But that didn’t stop Buzzbee from wildly speculating:

Ahmadinejad and his backers combine anti-Western ideology and strong Islamic conservatism. Larijani and his allies are also conservative, religious and strong supporters of the Revolutionary Guard, even if they are slightly less anti-Western.

That means tough bargaining over the nuclear program, and Western charges that Iranians are helping some of the violent groups in neighboring Iraq and supporting Islamic extremists elsewhere in the Middle East.

Iran clearly wants to engage the United States and the rest of the West, and it is likely to meet “flexibility with pragmatism,” said Vali Nasr and Ray Takeyh, two Iran experts with close ties to the country.

But so far, fearing that Iran is trying to develop atomic weapons, the United States and other governments remain adamant that Tehran must curb the nuclear program before any talks can begin on broader issues.

I shudder at the thought of an Iranian’s idea of “pragmatism” once we meet them with “flexibility.” I’m sure what those analysts are talking about is “flexibilty” regarding the Iranian nuclear program. In other words, surrender on the nuclear issue and we’ll talk.

No thanks. And if Iran is so all fired anxious to “engage” the US and the west, why are they taking hostages, refusing to bow to the will of the United Nations and stop their enrichment program, and training and supplying militants in Iraq who are killing Americans?

Krauthammer hit a home run today:

The capture and release of the British hostages illustrate once again the fatuousness of the “international community” and its great institutions. You want your people back? Go to the European Union and get stiffed. Go to the Security Council and get a statement that refuses even to “deplore” this act of piracy. (You settle for a humiliating expression of “grave concern.”) Then turn to the despised Americans. They’ll deal some cards and bail you out.

In the end, it will be up to the US to stand up to the fanatics. Probably alone, as usual, while the rest of our allies shout their criticisms and at the same time privately thank us for doing what they themselves lack the will to do.