In search of a caucus belli?

April 4 2007

In search of a caucus belli?

It is known that the hawks in Washington are looking for a caucus belli to justify US military action against Iran, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair seems to be bent upon fetching it for them. Blair is seeking to turn the row over Iran's detention of 15 British sailors and marines into a territorial dispute even though it has not been established that this was indeed the case and experts disagree with him.
Blair Ñ and US President George Bush for that matter ÑÊhave no doubts in their mind that the Iranians caught the Britons in Iraqi territorial waters and thus the action was in violation of international law. However, Commodore Nick Lambert, the Royal Navy commander of the operation on which the Britons were captured, is not so sure. Lambert says: "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."
Lambert's comments have to be seen against the reality that Iran and Iraq never drew up a map of their maritime boundary, and such a boundary shown on the British government map does not exist.
In strictly technical terms, the British map would have no relevance to either Iran or Iraq because only Terhan and Baghdad could agree on their bilateral boundary, and they have never done this in the Gulf. They have drawn their boundary only inside the Shatt Al Arab waterway ÑÊin the middle of it, to be precise ÑÊand it also represents their land borders.
What Blair is trying to do is to impose the British-drawn Iraq-Iran maritime boundary on the two countries with a view to escalating the crisis in a manner that suits the Washington hawks.
Bush has thrown his weight behind Blair describing Iran's capture of the Britons as "inexcusable" and demanding that Tehran "give back the hostages" immediately and unconditionally.
The US president says he supports Blair's efforts to find a diplomatic resolution to the crisis, but his critics accuse him of playing a game designed to justify military action against Iran.
A report highlighted in the Israeli media says that Russian intelligence the US will be ready to launch a missile attack on Iran's nuclear facilities as soon as early this month, perhaps "from 4am until 4pm on April 6."
The source of the report is Russia's RIA Novosti news agency, which quoted a security official as saying, "Russian intelligence has information that the US Armed Forces stationed in the ... Gulf have nearly completed preparations for a missile strike against Iranian territory." At the same time, the way the Israeli media played up the report underlines the Jewish state's anxiety to have the US wage an Israeli war against Iran to the last American soldier.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a US group, has issued a clear warning:" 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."
It is an uneasy situation at best in the region today as tension remains high whether the US/Israel would exploit the situation to launch military strikes against Iran. Conventional wisdom says military action against Iran would be disasterous but then the hawks in Washington, nudged by their Israeli counterparts, are not exactly known for applying conventional wisdom in their narrow, Israel-specific actions and that is what is worrying the region. And the defiant Iranian position is not helping ease the tension either.