[GreatBriton]

Europe has failed Britain in the Iran crisis




Labour's Margaret Beckett is getting it right. It's our EU allies who are letting us down

Malcolm Rifkind
Sunday April 1, 2007
The Observer


Sir Malcolm Rifkind was Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for Defence in the last Conservative government.



The Iranians are a sophisticated and sensitive people. From time to time, however, they do something dumb. The seizure of 15 British sailors and Royal Marines was one such example. Parading them on television and requiring them to mouth unconvincing apologies was another.

These events have not happened by accident. For some time the more radical elements in the Iranian government have been trying to find a way of retaliating against the growing pressure from the United Nations in general and the United States in particular. They have been surprised and disturbed that as a result of their nuclear programme, Washington has now achieved a second unanimous Security Council resolution ratcheting up sanctions against Iran.

The Iranians, of course, are indifferent as to whether the British were in Iranian or Iraqi waters. The British were taken for two specific reasons.

First, the Iranians want to demonstrate that they will not be passive while UN pressure is increased on them. They can, and will, retaliate through their close links with the Shia militia in Iraq and Hizbollah in Lebanon. They can disrupt normal traffic in what used to be called the Persian Gulf.

But they have a second objective. Some weeks ago the Americans arrested Iranians in the north of Iraq. They are still detained, accused of helping foment strife against the coalition forces. Tehran may be hoping to trade the British personnel for their citizens.

There is little doubt the British will, eventually, be released but it could now take weeks or months. The Americans have, quite rightly, rejected any deal. That should also be the policy of the British. Any deal would create a precedent that would encourage further kidnapping not just by Iranians but by friends and allies in the region.

But is there any other approach that will secure their freedom? I salute Margaret Beckett and the Foreign Office who have not only demanded that the British be freed, but also secured impressive diplomatic support from many governments and have taken the issue to the UN. Most welcome has been the strong pressure from the Iraqi government and from Turkey. But this will not be enough in the short term.

Iranians will have expected the protests. They are used to playing a long game. At the beginning of the Islamic Republic in 1979, US embassy hostages were held for months. The failure to secure their release helped ensure the defeat of Jimmy Carter, then running for a second term. The mood in Tehran is not so radical now. President Ahmadinejad may go in for radical rhetoric but the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his advisors will be more calculating. They will not be impressed by Western speeches. They will be by Western action.

The challenge the British government faces is to find a means of putting real pressure on Iran that would hurt the regime without escalating the crisis and pushing the Iranians into a humiliating climb-down.

In an ideal world quick action by the UN Security Council would have been the way forward. But the Russians and Chinese insisted on a watered-down statement that neither condemned the Iranian action nor called for the immediate release of the prisoners. Tough action through the UN may prove impossible to achieve given the obstacles on the Security Council.

There was, however, one other approach that would have a good chance of succeeding. The members of the EU aspire to having a common foreign policy. What better issue could there be on which our French, German and Italian allies and partners could show solidarity with the UK and demonstrate the benefits of joint action?

The best means of pressure would have been the export credit guarantees that are given to assist trade between Iran and western Europe. These, together with banking and other financial facilities are the soft underbelly of the Iranians and their withdrawal could do significant damage to Iran's already weak economy.

Such measures have already been canvassed by the Americans in respect of Iran's nuclear defiance.

The firm statement made by EU foreign ministers calling for the 'immediate and unconditional' release is welcome. But the apparent lack of any agreement over economic pressure has two serious consequences. First, it makes it very unlikely that Britain will be able to secure the release of the service personnel in the short term. Second, it is now almost inevitable that Iran will try to impose conditions from the international community and, in particular, the US, on their ultimate release.

This lack of agreement shows how hollow are the aspirations to a common European foreign policy. France and Germany should be ashamed at their refusal to assist their European partner in a humanitarian cause of this kind. If there had been a political will, there could already have been agreement.

The UN, in comparison, would take days or weeks and might face vetoes from predictable quarters. The Iranians might be reluctant to abandon their nuclear programme in the face of such limited economic sanctions from the EU, as they would consider a major national economic interest at stake. But the arrest of the British was a tactic and not a strategy. Once they had realised that their bluff had been called, it would have been quite likely that they would have conceded.

All this would have been even more probable if a European threat had been conveyed privately, thereby letting Iran back down without too much loss of face. It may be that a strategy of this kind is still under consideration. We should not expect the government to reveal all its thinking. Modern diplomacy needs confidentiality and private exchanges as much as it did in a previous age.

One thing, however, is sure. It will be pressure and not rhetoric that will impress the Iranian regime. If the EU is not prepared to help, there will now be a pause. The ball will now be in the Iranian court.

guardian.co.uk

[GreatBriton]

EU To Blair: It's A YP, Not An OP

The European Union declined last night to provide any substantial support to Britain in its standoff with Iran over the captured sailors and Marines. While the European foreign ministers called for Iran to release its captives, they refused to offer any sanctions on the Iranians:

European foreign ministers failed last night to back Britain in a threat to freeze the €14 billion trade in exports to Iran, as the hostage crisis descended into a propaganda circus.

Tony Blair could only issue a new statement of disgust as Iran tormented him with another sailor’s video confession and a fresh letter from the young mother detainee. ...

EU foreign ministers meeting in Germany called for the sailors to be freed but ruled out any tightening of lucrative export credit rules. The EU is Iran’s biggest trading partner. British officials are understood to have taken soundings on economic sanctions before the meeting but found few takers.

France, Iran’s second-largest EU trading partner, cautioned that further confrontation should be avoided. The Dutch said it was important not to risk a breakdown in dialogue.


Well, what a shock to see the French bail out on an ally for commercial gain! Once again, Europe shows that it has no sense and no courage. That fourteen-billion-pound trade with Iran will come in handy when the mullahs get the bomb. Perhaps they'll wait to invade Europe last. They have told Blair and the Brits that the Iranians are their problem, not Europe's.

George Bush stood up with the UK yesterday, after keeping a low profile on the crisis. Referring to the captives as "hostages", Bush emphatically supported Britain's assertion that Iran invaded Iraqi waters to carry out the capture:

Bush said the sailors had been operating legally in Iraqi territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, as the British have insisted, and not in Iranian waters, and he offered support for British Prime Minister Tony Blair's efforts "to resolve this peacefully." But he rejected any "quid pro quo" trade of Iranians held by U.S. forces in Iraq and ducked a question about whether military force would be justified to free the captured sailors.

"The Iranians must give back the hostages," the president told reporters at a brief question-and-answer session at Camp David after a meeting with the visiting Brazilian president. "They're innocent, they were doing nothing, and they were summarily plucked out of the water. As I say, it's inexcusable behavior."


The Telegraph has concluded that Europe is useless as a foreign-policy partner as well:

It is one thing to be disliked; quite another to be despised. Iran would not have kidnapped our Servicemen without having considered our rules of engagement, our diplomatic isolation and our likely military response, and made a rough calculation of how likely they were to get away with their piracy. ...

There is also, perhaps, a feeling of impotence: if we can't invade Iran, what else can we do? Plenty of things. We can, of course, pull diplomatic and economic levers. This will involve going through Brussels, not so much because we need a favour as because we have no independent trade policy: the only way that Britain can impose sanctions on Iran is if the EU does so. At the same time, we could be seizing Iranian assets. Longer term, we could be putting pressure on the regime by sponsoring its opponents. We could launch tactical strikes at Iranian military installations.

We could even, in extremis, impose the kind of armed siege, complete with no-fly-zone, that paralysed Saddam in the years between the two Iraq wars: we already maintain large coalition garrisons on both Iran's flanks. Limiting ourselves to trivial resolutions will be treated by the ayatollahs as a sign of weakness. If they hate us, let them also fear us.


All of a sudden, those "large coalition garrisons" look pretty strategic, don't they? I'm always amazed by the people who claim that we screwed up the war on terror by going after Iraq rather than Iran. If people could learn to read a map, they could see what we have attempted -- a military and political encirclement of Iran that no one could have dreamed six years ago. Why do people think Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pulled this stunt? He wants to drive the UK out of the coalition in order to break that encirclement.

It may finally dawn on Britain that the failure to have an independent trade policy has hamstrung them politically and militarily. Iran attacked a British ship, and yet Britain cannot stop trading with Iran because Brussels controls their trade policies. When one gives up sovereignty, these are the consequences.

If Britain wants their people back, they have two choices. They can either submit to Iran, or they can escalate the conflict to the point where it damages the mullahcracy. They had better commence deciding between the two.

www.captainsquartersblog.com . . .

[Tricks]

EU = Pussies. Who won't back Britain in this? Fucking hell. They should be ashamed of themselves.

[Brenda]

$1:

The Telegraph has concluded that Europe is useless

Now this is something I agree with

[stratos]

Would you realy want the french helping you out. One bullet fired and 500 french would drop their guns and hold up their hands.

[Tricks]

stratos stratos:

Would you realy want the french helping you out. One bullet fired and 500 french would drop their guns and hold up their hands.

"I would rather have a German Division in front of me then a French one behind me." Patton

[Calgary123]

They are smart for not backing the US/UK.

Canada shouldn't back these fools either. These crimminals are pushing a war, and if they really wanted to be "diplomatic" and avoid a conflict (ya... right ), they could give up the 5 diplomats THEY took hostage in the first place.

It's not like it for the west to admit THEY are the instigator... when it's as obvious as day. They like to create a PERCEPTION that it's Iran who is being the aggressor... which is false.


How I know Blair faked Iran map

CRAIG MURRAY, Former Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Head of the Foreign Office's Maritime Section
UK Daily Mail
Sunday April 1, 2007

Like most senior Royal Navy officers, Commodore Nick Lambert has great reserves of professional expertise and common sense. The Coalition task force commander was aboard HMS Cornwall when 15 Royal Navy personnel serving on the frigate were seized at gunpoint by Iranian forces on March 23.

The Navy states the 14 men and one woman were on a routine patrol in rigid inflatables off Iraqi shores - Iran insists they were in its waters illegally.

A few hours after the 15 were seized, Cdre Lambert said: '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.'

And his predecessor in command of the task force, Commodore Peter Lockwood of the Royal Australian Navy, said last October: 'No maritime border has been agreed upon by the countries.'

Both officers told the truth. It is the burial of this truth by No 10 spin doctors, and Tony Blair's remark that he is 'utterly certain' the incident took place within Iraqi territorial limits, that has escalated this from an incident to a crisis. Blair is being fatuous.

How can you be certain which side of a boundary you are when that boundary has never been drawn?

I am best known as the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, but from 1989 to 1992 I headed the Foreign Office's maritime section. This included responsibility for territorial sea claims and for negotiating our own maritime boundaries. The expertise of the Royal Navy was invaluable.

For eight months I also worked with Royal Naval and Defence Intelligence Service personnel in the Embargo Surveillance Centre, a secret unit operating 24 hours a day from an underground command centre in Central London to prevent Iraqi attempts at weapons procurement.

We analysed information from intelligence and other sources, and could instruct Royal Naval craft in the Gulf to board and inspect individual ships. I was responsible for getting the political clearance for operations just like the one now in question, in this exact location. So I know what I'm talking about.

There is no agreed boundary in the Northern Gulf, either between Iran and Iraq or between Iraq and Kuwait. The Iran-Iraq border has been agreed inside the Shatt al-Arab waterway, because there it is also the land border. But that agreement does not extend beyond the low tide line of the coast.

Even that very limited agreement is arguably no longer in force. Since it was reached in 1975, a war has been fought over it, and ten-year reviews - necessary because waters and sandbanks in this region move about dramatically - have never been carried out.

But what about the map the Ministry of Defence produced on Tuesday, with territorial boundaries set out by a clear red line, and the co-ordinates of the incident marked in relation to it?

I have news for you. Those boundaries are fake. They were drawn up by the MoD. They are not agreed or recognised by any international authority.

To put it at its most charitable, they are a potential boundary. It is accepted practice, where no boundary exists, to work by a rule-of-thumb idea of where a boundary, based on a median line between the two coasts, might be.

But to elevate that to a hard and fast boundary, and then base a major international incident on being a few hundred yards one side or the other, is out of order.

Negotiating a maritime boundary is horribly complicated. To set a median line you agree a series of triangulation points on both coastlines and do a geometric triangulation exercise to find a line running out from the coast.

Of course, both sides will argue about which triangulation points on the coast to use. You are allowed, for example, to draw a line across a bay entrance and use that as the coast, but there is plenty of room for the other side to argue over where that line is drawn.

That is only the start. For territorial seas you start at the low tide mark and uninhabited rocks and sandbanks count.

There is huge room for argument - ownership of a useless sandbank is not necessarily a settled thing. Then it really gets complex. What if the sandbank appears only at low tide or moves? In this area of the Gulf, sands shift endlessly.

It is, in short, impossible to say where a real, negotiated or adjudicated Iran-Iraq boundary might eventually lie. It is also why the instinct of both the Foreign Office and MoD was to play this quietly and negotiate our people back.

But the No10 spin doctors stepped in, seeing a propaganda opportunity to portray Blair as fighting evil Iranians.

Navy and Foreign Office experts were horrified at the notion of publishing that map.

In doing so we entrenched Blair's ridiculous boast that our 15 Navy personnel were definitely in Iraqi territorial seas, and claimed the right to dictate Iran's boundary.

It's not surprising Iraq backed British claims - the map is favourable to them. But it makes compromise on the captives very difficult.

Of course, the Iranians equally cannot say unilaterally that these are their territorial waters, and act as if they owned them.

In disputed waters it behoves everyone to act with caution and respect. Plainly the Iranians are not doing that.

None of this vindicates Iran's aggressive behaviour in holding the captives or the so-called confessions.

For Iran to detain the British sailors in these circumstances was provocative and bellicose.

To hold them for a few hours could have been taken as a legitimate, if over forceful way, of indicating their claim to the disputed waters in which the British personnel boarded a neutral vessel.

But Iranian behaviour in the past few days has tipped over into the plain illegal and indefensible.

However I have no doubt Blair is delighted at last to have a Middle East issue with popular support before May's elections.

Yes, Iran has a bad government that is behaving stupidly. But perhaps it is not alone. Both sides have to climb down. We have to state that no agreed border exists and that we had no intention of straying into Iranian waters.

The Iranian government should let our people go immediately. That is the way out of this mess for both sides.

[CDNBear]

Tricks Tricks:

stratos stratos:

Would you realy want the french helping you out. One bullet fired and 500 french would drop their guns and hold up their hands.

"I would rather have a German Division in front of me then a French one behind me." Patton

Patton was a smart man!!!

[Tricks]

Calgary123 Calgary123:

They are smart for not backing the US/UK.

O rly?

$1:

Canada shouldn't back these fools either. These crimminals are pushing a war, and if they really wanted to be "diplomatic" and avoid a conflict (ya... right ), they could give up the 5 diplomats THEY took hostage in the first place.

5 Diplomats? Shit I thought you were talking about Iran. See they are the criminals who should want to avoid a conflict.

$1:

It's not like it for the west to admit THEY are the instigator... when it's as obvious as day. They like to create a PERCEPTION that it's Iran who is being the aggressor... which is false.

BULLSHIT! Kidnapping soldiers = aggression fuckwad.

$1:

How I know Blair faked Iran map

CRAIG MURRAY, Former Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Head of the Foreign Office's Maritime Section
UK Daily Mail
Sunday April 1, 2007

APRIL FOOLS! HA!

$1:

The Navy states the 14 men and one woman were on a routine patrol in rigid inflatables off Iraqi shores - Iran insists they were in its waters illegally.

Yet they don't know where in hell they were.

$1:

How can you be certain which side of a boundary you are when that boundary has never been drawn?

Because there is a certain area that is considered Iranian and Iraqi. Iran gave a location, then changed that location. They knew full fucking well that they were in Iraqi waters. 2 completely different locations means BS.

$1:

So I know what I'm talking about.

OOOO, another self proclaimed expert.

$1:

There is no agreed boundary in the Northern Gulf, either between Iran and Iraq or between Iraq and Kuwait. The Iran-Iraq border has been agreed inside the Shatt al-Arab waterway, because there it is also the land border. But that agreement does not extend beyond the low tide line of the coast.

So those would be considered international waters? So doesn't that mean they attacked a british ship in international waters? Fucking idiot.

$1:

I have news for you. Those boundaries are fake. They were drawn up by the MoD. They are not agreed or recognised by any international authority.

It's called a line of best fit douche bag.

$1:

But to elevate that to a hard and fast boundary, and then base a major international incident on being a few hundred yards one side or the other, is out of order.

Few hundred yards? (I thought this guy was british? Shouldn't that be metres?)It was 1.7 miles. so we are talking almost 3000 yards. Fucktard.

Too lazy to go through the rest. This guy is a fucking moron.

[Scrappy]

I'm not surprised, Europe as a whole has it's head up it's Socialists PCed asses and they are more concerned with Immigrants and welfare and health clubs for those groups than they are with global issue. These soldiers were abducted at gun point in Iran's waters, there should be global outrage from all Democratic countries.

[Clogeroo]

Big surprise from the E.U. When Britain needs them the most they turn their backs on them if it means they will have to lose a few euros.

Britain has done everything right diplomatically and has every right to go get their sailors back before they are reduced to some Iranian trial to humiliate and possibly execute them. If Iran will not had over their sailors then they should go take them back using force is necessary.

Canada should stand by Britain and we should be offering our full support. The illegal kidnapping of sailors should not be permitted and the response and reasoning by Iran is highly questionable and hardly respectful. If these sailors hailed from Canada we would expect them to be returned as expediently as possible and we should demand Iran to return our fellow NATO ally’s sailors back or face severe consequences.

[sasquatch2]

It would appear that this whole matter can be laid at the feet of the Brit Commodore who was aboard the Cornwell. The Captain was amiss in not keeping the boarding party safely "under the guns" but the presense of this "flag officer" certainly gives this a distinct flavour. Once the iranians showed up and co-mingled with the Brit rigids, lethal force was out of the question.

Look to see this Commodore, leaving the area soon. He will be triming his roses shortly..........

The EU???? such is the result of surrendering your sovereignty. This could change..........

Lord Nelson would not be amused..........

[Canadarc]

Clogeroo Clogeroo:

Big surprise from the E.U. When Britain needs them the most they turn their backs on them if it means they will have to lose a few euros.

Yeah, funny ain't it he. Britain is for years a pain in the ass of the European Union, costs a lot more money than it brings in and still refuses to use the Euro. Lied to everbody about Saddam's hidden weapenary and now thinks that every European country will step in for them. No, I don't think it works this way, let Blair kiss Bush his ass again and ask the US to help him.

[Clogeroo]

$1:

Yeah, funny ain't it he. Britain is for years a pain in the ass of the European Union, costs a lot more money than it brings in and still refuses to use the Euro. Lied to everbody about Saddam's hidden weapenary and now thinks that every European country will step in for them. No, I don't think it works this way, let Blair kiss Bush his ass again and ask the US to help him.

Britain pays more to the E.U. you silly Dutchman and is one of the largest contributors. Why would anyone want to hand over control of their currency to the French and Germans anyway? I don't think they lied about weapons they just acted on the evidence that was presented before them. Also the British are smart trying to have good relations with the Americans. Europe has no backbone anyway and it would probably be the Americans who are the only ones who would help the British.

For speaking of suck ups you went from being your own country the Netherlands to a European state. We might as well not have bothered helping you chaps out in the Second World War if you were just going to join Germany anyway. Just wtach your Queen will be the next thing you will have to surrender. I cannot fathom why there are so many supporters of this union or why people would willingly throw away their own countries they fostered to be controlled by some elitist aristocrats.

Hopefully some of you gain some sense and have a revolution and maybe roll a few more heads. The E.U. is one big powergrab from the people and even this canuck across the pond can see that.

[sasquatch2]

I can see shades of George Orwell's mega state----the merging of the US and the UK......

A logical and sensible course of action for Britain.......