Brinkmanship Unwise in Uncharted Waters
03/30/07 "ICH"
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MEMORANDUM
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Brinkmanship Unwise in Uncharted Waters
The frenzy in America’s corporate media over Iran’s detainment
of 15 British Marines who may, or may not, have violated
Iranian-claimed territorial waters is a flashback to the
unrestrained support given the administration’s war-mongering
against Iraq shortly before the attack.
The British are refusing to concede the possibility that its
Marines may have crossed into ill-charted, Iranian-claimed
waters and are ratcheting up the confrontation. At this point,
the relative merits of the British and Iranian versions of what
actually happened are greatly less important than how hotheads
on each side—and particularly the British—decide to exploit the
event in the coming days.
There is real danger that this incident, and the way it plays
out, may turn out to be outgoing British Prime Minister Tony
Blair’s last gesture of fealty to President George W. Bush, Vice
President Dick Cheney, and “neo-conservative” advisers who, this
time, are looking for a casus belli to “justify” air strikes on
Iran. Bush and Cheney no doubt find encouragement in the fact
that the Democrats last week refused to include in the current
House bill on Iraq war funding proposed language forbidding the
White House from launching war on Iran without explicit
congressional approval.
If the Senate omits similar language today, or if the
prohibition disappears in conference, chances increase for a
“pre-emptive” US and/or Israeli strike on Iran and a major war
that will make the one in Iraq seem like a minor skirmish. The
impression, cultivated by the White House and our domesticated
media, that Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-majority states might
favor a military strike on Iran is a myth. But the implications
go far beyond the Middle East. With the Russians and Chinese,
the US has long since forfeited the ability, exploited with
considerable agility in the 70s and 80s, to play one off against
the other. In fact, US policies have helped drive the two giants
together. They know well that it’s about oil and strategic
positioning and will not stand idly by if Washington strikes
Iran.
Perfidious Albion/Tamed “Poodle”
Intelligence analysts place great store in sources’ record for
reliability and the historical record. We would be forced to
classify Tony Blair as a known prevaricator who, for reasons
still not entirely clear, has a five-year record of acting as
man’s best friend for Bush. If the president needs a casus
belli, Blair will probably fetch it.
Is there, then, any British statesman well versed in both the
Middle East and maritime matters, who is worthy of trust? There
is. Craig Murray is former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan (until he
was cashiered for openly objecting to UK and US support for
torture there) and also former head of the maritime section of
the British Foreign Office, and has considerable experience
negotiating disputes over borders extending into the sea.
In recent days, former ambassador Murray has performed true to
character in courageously speaking out, taking public issue with
the British government’s position on the incident at hand. He
was quick to quote, for example, the judiciously balanced words
of Commodore Nick Lambert, the Royal Navy commander of the
operation on which the Marines were captured:
“There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they were in Iraqi
territorial waters. Equally, the Iranians may well claim that
they were in their territorial waters. The extent and definition
of territorial waters in this part of the world is very
complicated.”
Compare the commodore’s caution with the infallible certainty
with which Blair has professed to be “utterly confident” that
the Marines were in Iraqi waters, and you get an idea of what
may be Blair’s ultimate purpose.
Writing in his widely read blog (http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/weblog.html
), Murray points to a “colossal problem” with respect to the map
the British government has used to show coordinates of the
incident and the Iran/Iraq maritime border—the story
uncritically accepted by stenographers of the mainstream press.
Murray writes:
“The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary shown on the British government
map does not exist. It has been drawn up by the British
Government. Only Iraq and Iran can agree on their bilateral
boundary, and they have never done this in the Gulf, only inside
the Shatt because there it is the land border too. This
published boundary is a fake with no legal force...Anyway, the
UK was plainly wrong to be ultra-provocative in disputed
waters...
“They [the British Marines] would under international law have
been allowed to enter Iranian territorial waters if in “hot
pursuit” of terrorists, slavers, or pirates....But they were
looking for smuggled vehicles attempting to evade car duty. What
has the evasion of Iranian or Iraqi taxes got to do with the
Royal Navy?”
Ambassador Murray has appealed to reason and cooler heads. To
state what should be the obvious, he notes it is not legitimate
for the British government to draw a boundary without agreement
of the countries involved:
“A little more humility, and an acknowledgement that this is a
boundary subject to dispute, might actually get our people home.
The question is are we really aiming to get our people home, or
to maximize propaganda from the incident?”
Casus Belli?
What is known at this point regarding the circumstances suggests
Royal Navy misfeasance rather than deliberate provocation. The
way the UK and US media has been stoked, however, suggests that
both London and Washington may decide to represent the
intransigence of Iranian hotheads as a casus belli for the long
prepared air strikes on Iran. And not to be ruled out is the
possibility that we are dealing with a provocation ab initio.
Intelligence analysts look to precedent, and what seems entirely
relevant in this connection is the discussion between Bush and
Blair on Jan. 31, 2003 six weeks before the attack on Iraq.
The “White House Memo” (like the famous “Downing Street Memo”
leaked earlier to the British press) shows George Bush broaching
to Blair various options to provoke war with Iraq. The British
minutes—the authenticity of which is not disputed by the British
government—of the Jan. 31, 2003 meeting stated the first option
as:
“The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with
fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired
on them, he would be in breach.”
Not to mention the (in)famous Tonkin Gulf non-incident, used by
President Lyndon Johnson to justify bombing North Vietnam.
Saving Face
The increasingly heavy investment of "face" in the UK Marine
capture situation is unquestionably adding to the danger of an
inadvertent outbreak of open hostilities. One side or the other
is going to be forced to surrender some of its pride if a more
deadly confrontation is going to be averted. And there is no
indication that the Bush administration is doing anything other
than encouraging British recalcitrance.
Unless one’s basic intention is to provoke a hostile action to
which the US and UK could “retaliate,” getting involved in a
tit-for-tat contest with the Iranians is a foolish and reckless
game, for it may not prove possible to avoid escalation and loss
of control. And we seem to be well on our way there. If one
calls Iran "evil,” arrests its diplomats, accuses it of
promoting terrorism and unlawful capture, one can be certain
that the Iranians will retaliate and raise the stakes in the
process.
That is how the game of tit-for-tat is played in that part of
the world. What British and American officials seem not to be
taking into account is that the Iranians are the neighborhood
toughs. In that neighborhood, they control the conditions under
which the game will be played. They can change the rules freely
any time they want; the UK cannot, and neither can Washington.
Provocative behavior, then, can be very dangerous, unless you
mean to pick a fight you may well regret.
Someone should recount to Tony Blair and Ayatollah Khameini the
maxim quoted by former United Nations chief weapons inspector
Hans Blix just last week:
"The noble art of losing face Will someday save the human race."
Ray Close, Princeton, NJ
Larry Johnson, Bethesda, MD
David MacMichael, Linden, VA
Ray McGovern, Arlington, VA
Coleen Rowley, Apple Valley, MN
Steering Group
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)Click here
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