Did Iran win or lose?

The Iranian government believes it scored a number of points from its confrontation with Britain, Iran experts and Western and Iranian officials said Wednesday:

Pluses

The Islamic republic faces growing pressure from the United Nations over its nuclear program, which the United States says is for weapons development but Iran says is for energy production. Iran signaled that diplomacy -- rather than confrontation -- can defuse problems with the international community in the end. "They sent a message: If you don't deal with us, if you think you can push us around, you're in for some nasty surprises. But if you deal with us, you can get a 'gift,' " said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA and National Security Council Middle East specialist now at the Brookings Institution. The standoff with Britain deflected attention from a U.N. resolution imposing sanctions on Iran for violating nuclear-nonproliferation rules. It passed a day after the British naval team was abducted.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also may have won a domestic propaganda victory, standing up to the West at one of the country's most vulnerable times since the 1979 revolution. And although Iran's Supreme National Security Council and supreme leader Ali Khamenei ultimately make key foreign-policy decisions, Iranian television showed Ahmadinejad being thanked by a British sailor. "He has come out more popular with his own supporters at the moment," said Christopher Rundle, a retired British diplomat who served in Iran.

Minuses

Experts and officials said Iran appeared to undertake rogue actions in violation of international law. In the end, the country recognized that the crisis was beginning to exact a cost, as it came under pressure even from allies and other Islamic countries, officials and experts say. Even Syria urged Iran to release the hostages, Syrian and U.S. sources said. Iran also was unable to rally significant public support for another long-term showdown such as the 1979-81 hostage ordeal involving 52 American diplomats, experts added. "There was no nationalist bounce out of this," said Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.