Certainly Blair lied about the start of the war. But there is a free press in the UK (and we can talk on sites like this one ). We are also a wealthy country. By contrast, the Iranian Government builds their popularity by incidents such as this.
Certainly I fail to see any reason for the UK to provoke such an incident. They are pulling troops out of the region (and Blair will soon retire).
I didn’t mean to be rude, but please understand that the UK (and Europe) have faced terrorist threats for most of the last century. After many painful incidents, hopefully peace has been reached in Northern Ireland.
The US was rightly shocked by 9/11, but to see Bush acting as if invading Iraq and attacking the Constitution is the answer to terrorism is incredibly depressing.
The SAS does have a good record in such areas. But the idea that we need to put a small spy force into Iran is indeed laughable. What are we trying to find out?
The area is disputed.
The soldiers were inspecting shipping (as they do regularly).
The Iranians are happy to make an incident whether the boarding party was legal or not.
If they were there prior, it was quietly. Paragraph # 3 of the article reads:
“The exercises began only four days after Iran captured 15 British sailors and marines whom it accused of straying into Iranian waters near the Gulf. Britain and the U.S. Navy have insisted the British sailors were operating in Iraqi waters.”
My post was addressing this sudden aggressive behavior 4 days after the British sailors incident. Suddenly training for straffing runs against shipping off Iran’s coast from 2 carrier groups completely undercuts the negotiations between the British and the Iranians for the return of those sailors.
“Gun-boat Diplomacy”? In 2007? What idiot would think that this would work, especially given the current quagmire in Iraq and the limit to which our forces are currently stretched…?
**MKS57 ** It is important to me to post this pubicly. In the above post, I’m not refering to you when I used the term ‘idiot’. I respect you and your POV, even if I don’t agree with it.
The collective ‘person’ that I was attempting to refer the term ‘idiot’ to was the one who signed off on the orders. The one who drafted the orders. The one who formulated the response and implemented it. The one who used their country’s military to interfere in two seperate and independent countries diplomatic negotiations, possibly as an excuse/pretext to declare war.
If I was unclear…if you felt I was calling you names…if you think I made this personal and about you when we both are merely trying to make sense of world events, than that’s my fault and I apologize to you publicly for my poorly worded post.
The C4 news here in the UK had a long article on the issue of territorial waters in this area. Basically there is no agreement. We count the 12 miles as beginning from one definition of ‘coast’ and the Iranians define ‘coast’ as including extensive tidal mudflats.
There are no treaties defining national waters in this region. Saddam unilaterally abrogated the last one in 1975.
I’m betting that they were in Iraq waters as we define them and Iranian as hardliners wanting to retaliate for the US seizing of their diplomatic staff and probable kidnapping of three of their generals, define it.
Note that the Iraqi commander of coastal waters is not backing the Brits up at this point.
We simply don’t know although I’d hazard a guess that the Iranian definition of ‘coastal waters’ will be a massive stretch.
But as has been pointed out, the UK Govt is a proven pack of habitual liars on pretty much everything, not just Iraq. And I say this as a former supporter.
And as they are liars I will not believe a word they say, or a shred of any ‘evidence’ they concoct until it has been independently verified.
Like in life liars have to work hard to regain lost trust.
Regardless of the technicalities Iran should stop screwing around.
The Algiers Accord was signed in 1975 and abrogated in 1980. Saddam apparently reaffirmed the treaty prior to the invasion of Kuwait, but what legal force that has is anybody’s guess. I imagine none.
I stand corrected. I doubt one side can unilaterally unabrogate a treaty. It also called for re-mapping every 10 years due to the shifting nature of the shatt al arab waterway.
The bottom line is there is a huge gray area for Iranian hardliners to play games in and the UK govt cannot be trusted as far as you can throw John Prescott.
The location only has to be within 12 miles of some isolated sand bar or spit Iran can plausibly claim as theirs to justify their actions in their own eyes.
A map showing a boundary that isn’t agreed by all parties. We might think that is the boundary but I’m betting Iran has a different map. To me the ship location looks closer to the little dick shaped bit of Iran than it does to Iraq and that’s without considering the mudflats Iran claims as coastline.
Frankly, I’m more than a little dismayed that so many people are prepared to believe the Iranians on this. The timing of the incident, following sanctions and the arrest of Iranians in Iraq, strongly suggests that Iran is trying to exact a measure of vengance. The burden of proof is on Iran to show that the British were tresspassing, and even more so because the circumstances suggest belligrance on the Iranians’ part.
I’m curious about that, too, Hyde. My youngest brother was on the Coast Guard’s TACLET team back in the late 1990s and was involved with several ship boardings in the Persian Gulf. They usually worked with Navy SEALs, boarded from Navy helicopters and were supported by Navy warships. The Coasties were indistinguishable from the SEALs in gear, armament and uniforms. Of course, they were enforcing the embargo on Iraq at the time, and it sounds like the Brits were doing something much less confrontational than that. On the whole, I think Iran is the belligerent in this case.
with all this talk about poorly-defined, unclear boundaries , there is one issue that
occurs to me:
What are the commonly used and accepted routes through the straights?
Not the legally defined treaties–I mean the actual routes used every day.
That’s a narrow and crowded strip of water, with ships from dozens of nations using it every day. There must be some international consensus about tusing the shipping lanes. Not necessarily a formal treaty–I’m just talking about the practical, physical necessity of avoiding accidents.
I assume that a captain of a commercial ship which makes regular trips from A to B must use a standard route every time. And with so many different ships, there must be some kind of routine that has developed over the past couple decades, because there are virtually no collisions.
I’d like to know if the British sailors and the civilian ship they boarded were within the “usual” lanes.
Iran certainly did this on purpose and I doubt the Brits were clearly in Iranian waters. The timing of the abduction so soon after sanctions were passed as well as certain quotes from senior Iranian generals scant days before lead me to believe this.
The text of SC/1723 says nothing explicit about the establishment of border securty to be conducted by the British, on land or sea. It merely extends the mandate for the multinational force currently within Iraq until 31 December, 2007.
Its pretty standard actually, a situation develops and appropriate assets are deployed as needed. It would actually be more ominus if no naval assets were assigned.
All it does is remove the beligerent countrys military advantages , ie homefield advantage and forces them to deal on a diplomatic level.
That is probably the real-politick reason. But note they are talking about retaliation for the seizing of 5 officials and the suspicious disappearance of three Iranian generals.
I doubt there’s any moral high ground for anyone to stand on in all of this. The Iranains should not have grabbed these people. Two wrongs do not make a right. But equally the UK should have exercised more due care and diligence in not putting our people in so vulnerable a position.
And sadly, as the UK Govt is a pack of proven liars, we can no longer automatically believe them over the Iranians. In this case, based on all the evidence available, I now do. However it wouldn’t surprise me one iota to find out the evidence has been faked and we were in waters the Iranians claim.
It wouldn’t surprise me either if the incident was provoked by the UK to help provide justification for an attack by the USA.
Any way it is sliced though - the Iranians should release them. Same goes for the US prisoners.
). We are also a wealthy country. By contrast, the Iranian Government builds their popularity by incidents such as this.
