Purpose?

Via Drum, this seems quite likely right to me:

The Revolutionary Guard may also have hoped to sabotage diplomatic negotiations over the nuclear issue. U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said several weeks ago that the United States was getting “pinged all over the world” by Iranian intermediaries who wanted a resumption of talks. Iran’s chief negotiator, Ali Larijani, hinted at such a message in his recent contacts with the European Union’s top diplomat, Javier Solana. But the prospect of nuclear talks may have been blown out of the water, as it were, until the British issue is resolved.

Maybe that was the goal of seizing the sailors and marines. The Revolutionary Guard, after all, can’t be happy about curbing the nuclear program that would allow it to project power even more aggressively.

This is the problem with neocons; everyone has them. Just like the United States, Iran has a group of people who believe that the enemy only understands force, and that semi-treasonous diplomats seeking negotiations do nothing but weaken the nation. Whether in Iran or the US, their response to a dangerous situation is always the advocacy of more force, of a more threatening posture, and of less negotiation. When they’re allowed to control parts of the foreign policy and defense apparatus of the state, things get very dangerous very quickly.