There is a thread in GD debating all kinds of implications of this mishap. While I am very interested in the outcome (I like Disneyesque happy endings). I’d like to know your view of how this got started.
I think the Brits are full of it.
The scenario of Irani forces venturing into Iraqi waters to capture a Brittish vessel seems very unlikely. I think in that scenario the headline would be:* ‘Irani vessel wanders into Iraqi waters, no survivors’*.
But what do you think? London or Teheran?
I really don’t know; I don’t trust either side a bit.
Reading over reports on this, they’ve been taken by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps. As far as I can tell, the IRGC are more hardline and extreme in their actions and aspirations than the regular Iranian military.
Correct me if anyone knows better, but I think they function largely separate from the government and are a powerful force within Iran itself.
I dont think the British sailors would have voluntarily trespassed into Iranian waters with only sidearms to defend themselves, so it’s either a British error which I find unlikely, an Iranian mistake or an overzealous IRGC exacerbating things, or both.
It’s starting to sound like the British may have strayed over the border… the rhetoric now is that “it would have been inadvertant, and is therefore a technical point”.
Which is different to “they were no where near it”.
The border in that waterway is always disputed, so both sides may think they were in the right.
It’s all just diplomatic handbags… the US captured some Iranians in Iraq recently, this is payback for that.
The troops will be made to sit around for a couple of weeks, and will then be quietly flown out of Tehran.
That must be the explanation.
But still: what have the Brits to gain in not respecting Irans interpretation of the border? Sheer arrogance?
Is Iran’s current interpretation still that as agreed by the Algiers accord of 1975 ie the border is a line down the middle of the Shatt al-Arab? What is Iraq’s current interpretation? Does the UNSC resolution 1973, which gives the UK responsibility for patrolling the waterway to prevent smuggling into Iraq, define areas of operation, and rules of engagement? My google-fu does not come up with any answers.
That’s UNSC Resolution 1723, obv.
Yes, about as unlikely as eight lightly armed marines and seven sailors straying into Iran’s territory in a rubber dinghy, knowing full well what happened last time :dubious:
Cite? Blair still insists (as does Iraq itself) that there’s evidence exonerating the sailors and they were firmly inside Iraqi waters.
As far as I’m concerned, all circumstantial evidence points to the British sailors being snatched in reprisal for the capture of five Irani revolutionary guardsmen inside Iraq recently, the defection of several top Irani revolutionary guards/intelligence officers to the West and economic sanctions forced onto Iran by the UK, which have been especially damaging to General Safavi, the commander of the revolutionary guards.
From Dominic’s link:
“Could”? Why not “is happy to”. Makes me think they’re still working away at the maps with Photoshop…
Or perhaps they need to remove any classified data from the evidence? Besides, where’s Iran’s evidence that the British forces were in Iran’s territory? What is this? Guilty until proven innocent? Why is the onus on the UK?
[Scouse accent] Calm down! Calm down! [/Sa]
Despite everything, I am still far more inclined to believe my government than that of Ahmadinejad.
The problem is that I don’t automatically believe my government, and especially not since the dodgy dossier, the yellowcake, the 45-minute claim, and the Downing Street memo. And their close association with that bunch of hideous liars in the White House.
They’re crooks where it comes to bellicose foreign policy, and you have to admit that. Hence my scepticism.
While I can’t say who is wrong/right, I’m pretty sure that the US now holding massive naval exercises in the Persian Gulf as a response is not helping things…
The problem is that’s not remotely how it happened. A British boarding party was inspecting a merchant vessel, the boarding party was not at the time on a major British ship of war and very well may have been out of range of operational support from the HMS Cornwall (which was the ship they were operating from.) Six Iranian naval vessels approached the merchant ship where the British team was doing its inspection and apprehended them there, this was a small group of sailors confronted with six ships.
I’m still genuinely curious as to whether it is standard procedure to have a boarding party so unsupported by the ship it is launching from, but not being a navy man I’m willing to imagine that that is standard procedure but don’t doubt that procedure might change as a result of all this.
As I’ve said elsewhere, the line, for the purposes of international relations, is affixed by treaty. Iraq and Iran both want more of the waterway than they currently have, but what they want does not change the actual treaty-line. From what I understand, in the peace following the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, this treaty-line was actually reaffirmed.
If Iran captured these sailors on their side of the treaty line, then they were in the right, speaking from a strict textualist view point. However, one might argue that it would be unwise to do something like this in response to anything but an extremely blatant violation of the treaty line, in a case where the Brits boarded a ship that was “possibly” crossing the treaty line (which would mean the Brits messed up navigationally) I think a more rational response from the Iranians would be to inform the Brits that they had crossed into Iranian waters and to leave.
If Iran captured these sailors in “what they think” should be Iranian waters but which are not Iranian waters as per the treaties Iran has signed and later reaffirmed, then Iran is in the wrong from a strictly textualist view point and also quite reckless to do something like this on the basis of waterway claims not supported by the international community at large.
It is undoubtedly true that Blair used false intelligence to persuade the UK Parliament to join in the Iraq war. :smack:
He was probably desperate to keep in with Bush :rolleyes: (though that’s no excuse).
However you’ll have to do a lot better than that to support your assertion that London was lying over this.
Here we have a bunch of lightly armed troops on inspection duties being overwhelmed by foreign force. At a time when the UK is overstretched in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Blair is due to retire in a few months - why on earth would he engineer a scenario that makes him look powerless?
As others have posted, Teheran can use incidents like this to bolster up internal support.
Also you clearly have no knowledge of UK history.
Over 3000 people (including British troops) were killed in Northern Ireland by terrorists in the last few decades.
After one incident known as ‘Bloody Sunday’, there have been no such actions as the one you envisage.
That’s commendable. However, you don’t have to have blind faith in the UK government to recognise that the onus is on Iran to prove that the sailors were captured in Iranian waters, not the UK to prove that they weren’t.
I don’t believe either side has any real opinion about whether or not they are right. I think each side is primarily concerned with whether they can seem to be right. And each side is mostly interested in being so perceived by a different audience.
It’s disputed territory: a gray area. Each side believes that it can make an argument about zones of control, about authority: Iran primarily to its own people, and the UK to the West generally. The UK believes, probably correctly, that Iran has little credibility in the West; and Iran believes, probably correctly, that the UK has little credibility in the Mideast region, and with most of the rest of the world.
Which, of course, sets the stage for a situation in which each side steps over the boundary of easily-proved-truth and into a gray zone. In other words, to some extent, both players are rolling the dice, and crossing their fingers. There’s an opportunity for each to earn some ground, politically mostly but a bit literally as well. That’s what disputed territory means, after all.
I don’t think either side is being entirely up-front about their objectives or their tactics. They’re both having a bit of a poke at each other, to see what happens.
That’s what it looks like to me, anyway.
Those carrier strike groups have been in the area for months, well before the Iranians seized the British sailors and marines. The Iranians were not happy about their presence and that may have led them to create an incident.
Based upon past history, I think radical elements in the Iranian government created this incident in order to advance their internal and external political goals.
Doesn’t the US have quite a lot of boats/aircraft carriers in the vicinity? If 6 Irani vessels would have entered Iraqi waters wouldn’t the ‘coalition’ scramble a couple of jets? Making the number of sailors/marines irrelevant.
I still think the Brits were doing something naughty.
For some suggestions for what kind of naughtyness:
To glee : My assertion is that both parties are quite capable of lying. You clearly think that in this case the UK goverment is telling the truth. My “clear ignorance of Brittish history” (and ignorance in general) is the reason I am wondering how others percieve this incident.
Will you agree with me that the idea that the UK is not conducting any kind of ‘clandestine’ operations in the area is laughable?
So a boarding party got a little bit lost and some Irani factions were more than happy to make it into an incident?
Or were the ‘marines’ in fact special forces returning from/going into Iran?
Any scenario involving 6 Irani vessels ‘invading’ undisputed Iraqi waters seems ridiculous to me. US/Brittish Navy is simply not that incompetent.
Perhaps Bush asked Blair to arrange an incident or two to help his push for a war with Iran.
This morning brings news from the MOD that the merchant vessel was 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters when it was intercepted and boarded. This is corroborated by the captain of the merchantman. Interestingly, Iran gave initial co-ordinates for the incident that also lay inside Iraqi waters. The Iranians, when this was pointed out to them, changed their version to lie inside their own waters. How very convenient.
Here’s a (not very good) link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6501555.stm
This is more or less breaking news, so I’ll keep an eye out for something more comprehensive.