Iran playing games

[Sirotnikov]

crumpets?

[Patroklos]

That was good.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ramo


It's pretty damn unimportant relative to the safety of the British sailors and marines.

In other news, Craig Murray, who was the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan says:

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/weblog.html

1. Its not at all unimportant. Iran wants UK to focus narrowly on the safety issue. So that UK agrees to make whatever admissions and concessions Iran wants to get their hostages back, and so the Iranian govt, probably under considerable stress internally, gets a propanda boost. You positively reinforce this behavior, you will only get more of it.

2. This was a UN approved mission, and presumably there is an accepted line where the mission takes place. US and other naval forces also patrol the gulf. If Iran disputes the line there are diplomatic mechanisms for contesting the line. One doesnt simply swoop down and kidnap people without warning.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ramo


Or a potential Rice visit, for that matter. They send her off on a globe-trotting vacation without the power (or inclination) to do anything. It's kind of pathetic...

Rice has gotten about as much out of the situatin as was gettable, AFAICT. She was constrained not by lack of power or inclination, but by the existence on the Pal side of a govt dominated by a party that continues to reject the Oslo accords and the existence of Israel, and that refuses to renounce violence.

However Olmert has invited the arab states of the region to a peace conference. If they are truely serious about peace, let them talk to Israel face to face, and not through an American interlocutor.

[lord of the mark]

BTW, Craig Murray is a highly partisan source. He was fired for controversial reasons, which include drunkeness, and failure as ambassador to represent the UKs position on Uzbekistan. He now considers his job to be acting as a dissident against the War on Terror.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Murray

[lord of the mark]

BBC:


The Ministry of Defence says the merchant ship boarded by a crew from HMS Cornwall on 23 March was 1.7 nautical miles (3.1km) inside Iraqi territorial waters. It says the master of the vessel has confirmed this.

HMS Cornwall was south-east of the merchant ship, inside Iraqi waters.

On 24 March the Iranian government told the UK - according to the UK's Ministry of Defence - that the merchant vessel was at a different location, but still within Iraqi waters.

When the UK pointed out to the Iranians that the location they had given was within Iraqi waters, the Iranians provided a "corrected" location, nearly 1 nautical mile away (1.9km) from its first position but within Iranian waters.

The UK government disputes both Iranian claims. It says the "corrected" location is more than 2 nautical miles (3.7km) from its own version, as recorded by HMS Cornwall's GPS data equipment. "


If there is no border, why did the Govt of Iran "correct" the location?

The argument that the lack of a formal agreed boundary allows either side to exert power as it wishes, is not a position accepted by the UK or the EU, in the case of Israel and the West Bank.

[Gibsie]

Nor is it an argument put forward by Craig Murray. Nice combination of strawman with ad hominem though

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Gibsie
Nor is it an argument put forward by Craig Murray. Nice combination of strawman with ad hominem though

Ad hominem is a logical response to an appeal to authority. Ramo quite specifically mentioned Murray's credentials, presumably to give some heft to his statement, which otherwise was just another opinion on a blog.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Gibsie
Nor is it an argument put forward by Craig Murray. Nice combination of strawman with ad hominem though

"None of which changes the fact that the Iranians, having made their point, should have handed back the captives immediately."

That reads to me like the Iranians had every right to make their point. IE to exert their power as they wished, by seizing the UK personnel. Now they didnt shoot on the spot - so yeah, if you read "exert power as they wished" as meaning disregard the Geneva Conventions in regard to uniformed prisoners of wars, say, then it was an exaggeration, and even a strawman. I of course did not mean that, but meant they could act without regard to international law, seizing naval personnel in a disputed area without warning them away, etc.

[lord of the mark]

by the way doing a search on "Iraq Iran Boundary Gulf" close to half the hits on the first two pages are references to the Murray posting. The propaganda machine is in full swing.

[lord of the mark]

heres the Beeb, several days ago. I havent yet found a more recent source. This notes the fact that Murray points, out, but others as well, and without his spin.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6496559.stm

"Tehran claims it arrested the 15 because they had strayed into Iranian waters while on a routine patrol. The UK insists it was in Iraqi waters.

Iraq expert Toby Dodge, of the University of London's Queen Mary college, told the BBC News website that the Shatt al-Arab median line was first agreed between the two countries in the 1970s.

"There was an agreement between Iran and the Iraqi government that divided the Shatt al-Arab in half in 1978," he said.


And up until recent years the median line was marked simply with buoys, he added.

"But the demarcation of the waterway has suffered like many things," he said.

Admiral Sir Alan West, who was first sea lord in 2004, when Iran detained eight UK serviceman accused of straying into Iranian territory, said the waters were "very complicated".

To make sure they did not stray into Iranian waters, Royal Navy personnel leaving their mother ship on smaller patrol boats would have charts detailing Iranian territory, Iraqi territory, disputed territory and international waters.

"Drawn on will be areas in which to operate and this will also be drawn on digital screens," he told the BBC News website.


A Foreign Office spokesman explained how the Royal Navy confirm their location.

"They are constantly checking on the situation to ensure they are working in our waters," he said.

"They have logs and charts to tell them the co-ordinates of Iranian and Iraqi waters."

"They will use GPS machines which will give them a fixed location and plot this against charts which will tell them where different countries' waters are."

But the Ministry of Defence has so far refused to release the co-ordinates of where they believe the vessel was when the sailors were seized.

The boats would be under the control of the mother ship, in this case the HMS Cornwall, Sir Alan said.

"If they're heading out of the water, the mother ship will say 'you're going out' and get them to come back in."

The commission is meant to sit regularly to discuss and arbitrate exactly where the median line down the Shatt al-Arab goes because it does move with the seasons

Sir Alan said a commission would usually meet every two or three years to agree exactly where the median line should be.

"The commission is meant to sit regularly to discuss and arbitrate exactly where the median line down the Shatt al-Arab goes because it does move with the seasons and each year it moves in shifts because it's quite a flow of water," he said.

"The commission would consist of representatives, principally of Iran and Iraq, sitting around a table and deciding where the line would be. There are other people involved to mediate."

The commission had not met for a few years because of the war, he added.

"We know the waters are difficult and tricky but we know, quite clearly, areas that are clearly Iraqi, and clearly Iranian," he said.

"If there's water that's a little bit difficult, a little bit disputed, then our people do not go there because we know of the sensitivities."

Richard Schofield, an expert in international boundaries at King's College London, questioned whether the dispute would be eased if the Royal Navy released co-ordinates of where the sailors were seized.

"Releasing the co-ordinates wouldn't necessarily help us as there is no formally agreed boundary," he said.

"It isn't clear the incident happened off the water of Shatt al-Arab. We are talking about territorial waters beyond."

"Iran and Iraq have never agreed a boundary of their territorial waters. There is no legal definition of the boundary beyond the Shatt al-Arab."

[Gibsie]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
...so yeah, if you read "exert power as they wished"...

Indeed, if you misread what he has to say in order to invent an argument he's not making, then you will be able to make all kinds of wild comments about him and what he supposedly believes. I'd suggest that rather than hallucinating an argument coming from him based on four words, you take the time to read perhaps four paragraphs from him (Since he takes the time to re-iterate that he doesn't support Iran's actions quite often).

[lord of the mark]

from Ms Beckett's statement

"The House may also be aware that, even if, and I stress that they were not, even if the Iranian government believed, our vessels had been in Iranian waters, under international law, warships have sovereign immunity in the territorial sea of other states. The very most Iran would have been entitled to do, if they considered that our boats were breaching the rules on innocent passage, would have been to require the ship to leave their territorial waters immediately."

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Gibsie


Indeed, if you misread what he has to say in order to invent an argument he's not making, then you will be able to make all kinds of wild comments about him and what he supposedly believes. I'd suggest that rather than hallucinating an argument coming from him based on four words, you take the time to read perhaps four paragraphs from him (Since he takes the time to re-iterate that he doesn't support Iran's actions quite often).

I read what Ramo posted. CM says there are collosal problems. Which I dont see.

1. The fact that Iran and Iraq have not negotiated a border in the Gulf does not mean that a de facto border does not exist, and that for many purposes it has the validity of an agreed border. That is indeed precisely the argument that is often made with regard to the green line that seperated Israel from Jordan, and that is invoked on a variety of issues today. AFAIK that de facto line is what the UK was referring to in its presentations

2. The fact that some Iranian territory is closer to the spot, while that is the basis for Irans claim, is not necessarily decisive under international maritime law, IIUC. Ergo, its a red herring.

3. According to statements made by brit officials to the BBC, it was normal practice for the RN not only to avoid Iranian waters, but ALSO to avoid disputed waters, and to act ONLY in undisputed Iraqi waters. The lack of a recognized boundary in the Gulf does NOT imply that the entire body of water is in dispute.

4. The Iranian changes in where they claimed the boat to be would seem to imply that they too, are aware of the weakness of Murrays argument.

5. Even if the Brits WERE in Iranian territorial waters, the Iranians had no right to seize them. Period. NOT "having made their point they should release them" but rather, they had NO right to make their point in such fashion.

[Gibsie]

Still too stubborn to actually go and read his own posts lest they show up your misinterpretations eh?