THE
ROVING EYE British pawns in an Iranian
game By Pepe Escobar
The 15 British sailors and marines who
were patrolling the Shatt-al-Arab - or Arvand
Roud, as it is known in Iran - were not exactly
indulging in a little bit of Rod Stewart ("I am
sailing/stormy waters/to be with you/to be free").
They had their guns loaded. These would certainly
have been fired against Iraqi smugglers - or,
better yet, the Iraqi resistance, Sunni or
Shi'ite. But suddenly the British were confronted
not by Iraqi but by Iranian gunboats.
This
correspondent has been to the Shatt-al-Arab. It's
a busy and tricky waterway, to say the least.
Iraqi fishing boats share the
waters with Iranian patrol
boats. From the Iraqi shore one can see the
Iranian shore, flags aflutter. These remain
extremely disputed waters. In 1975, a treaty was
signed in Algiers between the shah of Iran and
Saddam Hussein. The center of the river was
supposed to be the border. Then Saddam invaded
Iran in 1980. After the Iran-Iraq War that this
sparked ended in 1988, and even after both Gulf
wars, things remain perilously inconclusive: a new
treaty still has not been signed.
The
British are adamant that the sailors were in Iraqi
waters checking for cars, not weapons, being
smuggled. It's almost laughable that the Royal
Navy should be reduced to finding dangerous
Toyotas in the Persian Gulf. Some reports from
Tehran claim the British were actually checking
Iranian military preparations ahead of a possible
confrontation with the US.
Western
corporate media overwhelmingly take for granted
that the British were in Iraqi or "international"
waters (wrong: these are disputed Iran/Iraq
waters). Tehran has accused the British of
"blatant aggression" and reminded world public
opinion "this is not the first time that Britain
commits such illegal acts" (which is true). Tehran
diplomats later suggested that the British might
be charged with espionage (which is actually the
case in Khuzestan province in Iran, conducted by
US Special Forces).
Chess matters The coverage of the sensitive Shatt-al-Arab
incident in the Iranian press was quite a smash:
initially there was none. Everything was closed
for Nowrouz - the one-week Iranian New Year
holiday. But this has not prevented
radicalization.
Hardliners like the
Republican Guards and the Basiji - Iran's
volunteer Islamist militia - asked the government
of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad not to release the
sailors until the five Iranian diplomats arrested
by the US in Iraq were freed. They also demanded
that the new United Nations sanctions imposed on
Iran over its nuclear program be scrapped. And all
this was under the watchful eyes (and ears) of the
US Navy's 5th Fleet in Bahrain.
Much of
the Western press assumed Iran wanted Western
hostages to exchange for the five Iranian
diplomats, without ever questioning the Pentagon's
illegal capture of the Iranians in the first
place. Then the plot was amplified as an
Ahmadinejad diversion tactic as the UN Security
Council worked out a new resolution for more
sanctions on Iran and as Russia told Tehran to
come up with the outstanding money or the Bushehr
nuclear plant it is building in Iran would not be
finished.
The Shatt-al-Arab incident has
been linked to an Iranian response to Washington's
accusations that Tehran is helping Shi'ite
militias with funds, weapons and training in Iraq.
For the record, Iran's ambassador in Iraq, Hassan
Kazemi Qomi, said there is absolutely no
connection: "They entered Iranian territorial
waters and were arrested. It has nothing to do
with other issues." Not surprisingly, Iraqi
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari had to take the
side of the occupiers who installed him in his
post: he said the British were in Iraq invited by
the Iraqi government and were operating in Iraqi
waters.
This doesn't stop people,
especially in the Islamic world, questioning what
business the British, as an occupation force, had
in the Shatt-al-Arab to start with.
From
the depths of their abysmal, recent historical
experience, even the Arab world - which is not so
fond of Persians - sees the US-orchestrated UN
sanctions on Iran for what they are: the West,
once again, trying to smash an independent nation
daring to have its shot at more influence in the
Middle East. More sanctions will be useless as
China and India will continue to do serious
business with Iran.
Tactically, as a
backgammon or, better yet, chess move - in which
Iranians excel - the Shatt-al-Arab incident may be
much more clever than it appears. Oil is
establishing itself well above US$60 a barrel as a
result of the incident, and that's good for Iran.
It's true that from London's point of view, the
incident could have been arranged as a
provocation, part of a mischievous plan to
escalate the conflict with Iran and turn Western
and possibly world public opinion against the
regime.
But from Tehran's point of view,
for all purposes British Prime Minister Tony Blair
is a soft target. The episode has the potential to
paralyze both President George W Bush and Blair.
Neither can use the incident to start a war with
Iran, although Blair has warned that his
government is prepared to move to "a different
phase" if Iran does not quickly release the
sailors.
If the Tehran leadership decides
to drag out the proceedings, the Shi'ites in
southern Iraq, already exasperated by the British
(as they were in the 1920s), may take the hint and
accelerate a confrontation. Strands of the Shi'ite
resistance may start merging with strands of the
Sunni resistance (that's what Shi'ite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr has wanted all along). And this
would prove once again that you don't need nuclear
weapons when you excel at playing chess.
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