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Hmmm... With the Revolutionary Guard thing, here's a guess of mine: They were outside Iranian waters, but the RG decided to go for them anyway since they tend to be a bunch of fanatical nutbars. They hand them over to their, non-RG, superiors(Or those people make sure to get them from the RG.) who do not want to cause internal trouble by saying: "Hey, sorry, this group of psychos in our army screwed up, here are your dudes back." or to appear internationally weak by just bending over and handing them back.
We can all agree that whether Iran would kick American ass or not in an invasion or attack, they would probably at least suffer some infrastructure damage, so they're unlikely to push it at the point where the US/UK coalition resort to violent means to get their men back. And since we can probably all agree that the US and/or UK would not come back from such a venture entirely unscathed, it's unlikely they will either.
Unless the US administration is completely composed of nutters, at any rate.
As for the RoE... #1: They would definitely have lost their guys in the inflateable boats no matter what if they decided to attack, so it was probably partially to avoid losing their buddies. #2: They are not officially at war with Iran, so I think they've likely got orders to give the Iranians the benefit of the doubt in anything they do, and only return fire in self-defense, not initiate a battle.
The last thing anyone needs is a misunderstanding or a retaliation to a bunch of maniacs operating on their own escalating into something no one can stop.
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