Dyer states the obvious about the Iranian snatch operation

As usual, Dyer says out loud what the insiders say amongst themselves (and the regular media never mentions)....

Iran: How to Start a War:

... it was not necessarily an operation ordered from the top of Iran's government. In fact, there is no single source of authority in Iran's curious system of 'multiple governments,' as one observer labelled the impenetrably complex division of responsibilities and powers between elected civilians and unelected mullahs. The Revolutionary Guards (who are quite different from the regular armed forces) enjoy considerable autonomy within this system.

According to the US authorities in Iraq, the five Iranian diplomats arrested by US troops in a raid in Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan last January were actually Revolutionary Guards, and it would seem that their colleagues want them back. Kidnapping American troops as hostages for an exchange could cause a war, so they decided to grab some Brits instead. And it will probably work, after a certain delay...

Dyer points out that the Iranians had a full ambush waiting for the Brits, and that it's silly to think they didn't have a logical agenda. When I heard the story I assumed it was a swap maneuver, but Dyer fills in details on why the Iranians wanted Brits and not Americans. (Yanks are more aggressive, hence a snatch would be more likely to produce dead US soldiers and an invasion of Iran -- both counter-productive.)