THREATS
AND LIES
Iran Update: US Military Threats Continue As British 'Seized
Sailors' Lies Unravel
JNV Anti-War Briefing 114
2 May 2008 |
This briefing
is available as a pdf here.
Posted 1 December
2009 |
US ESCALATES GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY
On 30 April, US Defence Secretary Robert
Gates denied that the arrival of a second US aircraft carrier
in the Persian Gulf represented an escalation of the US-Iran confrontation,
describing it instead as a ‘reminder’ to Iran. (Guardian,
1 May, p.19) Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, Director of Operations at the
Pentagon, said it was not a message directed solely at Iran: ‘It’s
a message to all nations that the United States possesses the
capability and the will to operate global[ly].’ (Reuters,
30 April)
As well as providing additional airpower
for strikes and reconnaissance, Gen. Ham said the brief overlap
between the outgoing and incoming carriers ‘allows us, also,
to demonstrate to our friends and allies in the region a commitment
to security in the region.’ (Washington
Post, 1 May, p.A04)
The Chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Admiral Michael G. Mullen told the Washington Post (same article)
that ‘Iran is not going away... We need to be strong and
really in the deterrent mode, to not be very predictable’
regarding Iran. He claimed that Iran was supplying weapons, training
and financing to insurgents not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan.
According to CBS News, a major US television
news programme, ‘the Pentagon ordered military commanders
to develop new options for attacking Iran’: ‘Targets
would include everything from the plants where weapons are made
to the headquarters of the organization known as the Quds Force
which [allegedly] directs operations in Iraq.’ (29
April)
IRAQ-IRAN—THE HAND OF FRIENDSHIP?
The same CBS report stated: ‘Later
this week Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is expected to
confront the Iranians with evidence of their meddling and demand
a halt.’ There are a number of problems with this gambit,
and this way of reporting it, not the least of which is that Maliki
has just relied on Iranian assistance in bringing to an end his
disastrous assault on Basra, Iraq’s second city.
Relations between Iraq and Iran are at something
of an all-time high. At the beginning of March, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was welcomed to Baghdad by Maliki himself:
‘He announced a $1 billion low-interest loan to help reconstruct
Iraq, and he was welcomed with a red-carpet ceremony, a marching
band and much fanfare.’ Abbas Bayati, a Shiite legislator
close to Maliki, said: ‘The Iranian role in Iraq, this role
is seen by the majority of the people as being a positive one.’
(Washington Post, 3 March
p.A01)
‘Ahmadinejad also took a dig at President
George W. Bush, who typically travels into Iraq unannounced and
often visits military bases. The Iranian’s trip was known
well in advance, and he traveled through the streets of Baghdad,
though under heavy guard. “We have nothing to hide from
the people of Iran and Iraq,” he said. “All those
who come on stealth visits, we should ask them why they visit
this country in a stealth manner.” ’ (Associated
Press, 3 March)
Then in April, when the Iraqi government’s
assault on Muqtada al-Sadr’s forces in Basra ran into the
ground despite the Prime Minister declaring that he was in ‘a
fight to the end’, Tehran played a crucial role in rescuing
Maliki. According to the BBC account, ‘a delegation from
the United Iraqi Alliance, the parliamentary bloc that supports
Mr Maliki, flew to Tehran’, and enlisted the Iranian leadership’s
help in bringing the fighting to an end. ‘The Iranian leadership,
according to the source, then brought Moqtada Sadr to Tehran.
There, late on Saturday night, he crafted the statement that would
order his Mehdi Army militiamen off the streets, the source said.’
The BBC comments: ‘In this version of events, the Iraqi
prime minister retains the ability to deny entering talks with
Moqtada Sadr. In effect, it appears to have been done for him,
with Iranian influence brought to bear.’
A different version of events appears in
the Asia Times: ‘The deal was brokered after negotiations
in the holy city of Qom in Iran involving the two Shi’ite
factions—the Da'wa Party and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council
(SIIC)—which have been locked in conflict with Muqtada al-Sadr's
Mahdi Army in southern Iraq. It appears that one of the most shadowy
figures of the Iranian security establishment, General Qassem
Suleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iranian Revolutionary
Guards Corps (IRGC) personally mediated in the intra-Iraqi Shi’ite
negotiations. Suleimani is in charge of the IRGC's operations
abroad. US military commanders routinely blame the Quds for all
their woes in Iraq. The fact that the representatives of Da’wa
and SIIC secretly traveled to Qom under the very nose of American
and British intelligence and sought Quds mediation to broker a
deal conveys a huge political message.’ (Former Indian diplomat
MK Bhadrakumar, Asia Times,
3 April)
However the deal was achieved, the result
was that, on the one hand, Al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia
withdrew from the streets of Basra undefeated, holding onto all
their weapons, defying Maliki’s demand for them to give
up their medium and heavy weapons; and, on the other, Iran had
saved the honour of the Maliki coalition and government.
IRAQ-IRAN—MALIKI THE TRIGGER
MAN?
Given Iranian sponsorship of two of the key
components of the Iraqi government, expecting Maliki to confront
Iran over its alleged support for Iraqi militias publicly is a
very ambitious US goal. Enormous pressure has been put on the
Prime Minister nonetheless: ‘The United States is said to
have been planning for weeks to conduct a briefing in Baghdad
to present new evidence of Iranian involvement. But it has held
off to give Iraqi officials a chance to present their concerns
directly to Iranian officials.’ (New
York Times, 1 May)
Under the gun, Maliki sent a delegation on
1 May to discuss the US allegations with Tehran. ‘An Iraqi
official said the delegation included two of Mr. Maliki’s
long-time political allies and a powerful member of another Shiite
political party that backs him. All of them have ties to Iran.
The official said the group would raise the issue of the Iranian
arms shipments that have been found and other indications that
Tehran is meddling in Iraq’s internal affairs. The delegation
is expected to visit influential ayatollahs in Qom and to go to
Tehran. One Iraqi official said he expected the group to meet
with Brig. Gen. Qassen Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, a paramilitary group that American
officials say is backing Shiite militias in Iraq.’ (NYT,
1 May, as above) The same man said to have negotiated the end
of the Basra fighting!
DISPUTED WATERS: BRITISH LIES UNRAVEL
On another front, there are new revelations
about Britain-Iran relations. On 23 March 2007, 15 British sailors
and Marines were captured by Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the
waters of the northern Gulf; they were eventually released unconditionally.
British Defence Secretary Des Browne stated unequivocally in Parliament
on 19 June (among other occasions) that: ‘There is no doubt
that HMS Cornwall was operating in Iraqi waters and that the incident
itself took place in Iraqi waters.’
On 17 April, The Times published excerpts
from two Ministry of Defence (MOD) documents obtained under the
Freedom of Information Act which showed that according to the
MOD itself: the 15 British sailors and Marines were in waters
that are not internationally agreed as Iraqi; the US and UK unilaterally
drew a dividing line between Iraqi and Iranian waters—without
informing Iran where it was; and that Iranian Revolutionary Guard
vessels were crossing this invisible line three times a week at
the time of the incident.
Declassified MOD report to the Chief of the
Defence Staff titled: ‘Why the incident occurred’
(13 April 2007): ‘Since the outset of the Iraq-Iran War
there has been no formal ratified TTW [territorial waters] agreement
in force between Iraq and Iran . . . In the absence of any formal
agreement, the coalition tactical demarcation (the Op Line) is
used as a notional TTW boundary. It is a US NAVCENT [US Naval
Forces Central Command] construct based on an extension of the
Algiers accord demarcation line beyond the mouth of the Shatt
al-Arab [waterway] into the NAG [northern Arabian Gulf]. While
it may be assumed that the Iranians must be aware of some form
of operational boundary, the exact coordinates to the Op Line
have not been published to Iran.” (Times,
17 April, p.4)
JNV
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