Iran playing games

[lord of the mark]

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

I dont have to go read your favorite blogger, and you dont have to read mine. I responded to what was posted here. If you can make a logical argument against what Ive posted, feel free to do so.

[Gibsie]

Oh my, look at that, I suggest actually reading someone's words before you attack them and suddenly he's my favourite blogger! Why don't you just say he's an anti-Semite, invoke Godwin and be done with it? Excellent discussion.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Gibsie
Oh my, look at that, I suggest actually reading someone's words before you attack them and suddenly he's my favourite blogger! Why don't you just say he's an anti-Semite, invoke Godwin and be done with it? Excellent discussion.

The only words I took issue with were those I actually read. Those which were posted on here. Are you suggesting my response was not relevant to those words, or that I can only understand the full subtley of Mr Murrays words by reading other posts on his blog?

Im genuinely confused as to what youre getting at.

[Gibsie]

You took a few words from the guy completely out of context and ascribed so many things to them that were completely not the case. His point can be summarised nice and easily:
The borders the MoD present aren't so clear-cut, and in doing so their plasuability is somewhat undermimed. Iran has "made its point" and should release the sailors (And by "making their point" he means they've made a stupid attack agaimst the West and showed off that the UK won't do anything major in response. To point out they've made this point doesn't mean to support it).

To go over the points you've made against this scurrilous Craig Murray who dares to do things like speak out against Uzbeki human rights abuses (Now there's a sign of anti0Western sentiment, eh?)...

1 - I agree. The line the MoD show should be presented in the proper manner however.
2 - It is a red herring, which is why it's not an argument made by anyone I know outside of Iran.
3 - Yes, and Iran probably think a lot more is theirs than even the disputed land.
4 - Yes, it does, doesn't it?
5 - Indeed, this is true. And anyone who says Iran were right to apprehend them is an idiot. Let me know where such people are...

[lord of the mark]

here is a more detailed discussion of the maritime boundary dispute, and related legal issues.

http://www.dur.ac.uk/ibru/resources/iran-iraq/

It may be that the MoD did not use the precisely correct legal terminology. They are not international lawyers or diplomats, after all. They seem to me to have been substantively correct however, and so there are no colossal problems, nor was the mainstream media incorrect to accept the UK statement about the boundary.

[lord of the mark]

AP


'But the position, outside the Shatt el-Arab waterway in the Gulf, is an area where no legal boundary exists, leaving it unclear whose territory it lies in, said Kaiyan Kaikobad, author of "The Shatt al-Arab Boundary Question."

"What we do have is a de facto state practiced boundary — a line both countries have been observing on the spot," he said. "The problem is that though the British have drawn a line where they claim the de facto line is, we haven't seen an Iranian version." "


As I said, a de facto boundary that both countries have observed on the spot.

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by molly bloom

Oh dear.

Having been speaking to a (former) Czech dissident only on Wednesday, let me assure you that we aren't quite yet at the Warsaw Pact stage of domestic repression in this country.

When I need someone to assure me about my own country, I'll ask.

Cheers for the offer, nonetheless.

Originally posted by molly bloom
This begins to sound just like all those misguided people yelling 'Fascists!' at Thatcher and her cronies in the 80s.

At least Thatcher stood up to idiot dictators like Ahmadinejad.

[Kuciwalker]

curt: molly lives in the UK too...

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by TheStinger
Yeah special forces go round with ordinary women sailors

You have a point there...But I still think there is more to this farce than meets the eye.

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Curt, that remark about Blair was pretty off-the-wall.

Americans seem to approve of Blair, but you just have to live in the UK to fully appreciate how out to lunch our PM is.

PS
And since when did 'off the wall' become something out of the ordinary in OT?

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
curt: molly lives in the UK too...

Indeed.

My point is that I don't need assurances concerning the
incompetence of my PM, from countrymen or otherwise.

[Ramo]

lotm, the basic point Murray was making is that the border is pretty damn ambiguous, and the British MoD doesn't help their case by asserting where it definitely is. It's just a pointless escalation.

Incidentally, bringing up the alcohol allegation is uncalled for given that the very Wiki article you cited said that the was exonerated of the charge (I suppose Chris Hitchens is persona non-grata now?). And objecting to the Uzbeks' brutal treatment of its detainees, including boiling them alive, is supposed to be a credibility problem?

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.

You mean the very same gov't that Bush asked for (through the devolution of poiwer to a newly elected legislature) as a predicate for continuing down the "roadmap" towards Pal statehood? And now he wants Fatah to reverse course, reconsolidate power, potentially pulling off a coup...

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.

Are you seriously trying to portray the refusal to talk as a one-sided affair? After the utter disaster in Lebanon, it's true that Olmert has been more willing to compromise. And so have the Pals and Saudis for other reasons. See the recent renewal of the 2002 Arab League proposal; and note that Olmert rejected any resolution to the right of return issue - even a symbolic one - out of hand (something that Barak at least considered). But the point is that Burh or Rice have rarely shown any desire to pressure the more intransigent actors on all sides to make hard choices.

[ElTigre]

Originally posted by 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."

This is only true for warships passing through other nations territorial waters by mistake ("innocent passage"). The British ships however boarded a neutral vessel. If we accept the Iranian point of view (which I don't), a strong case can be made that the detaining of sailors who just boarded a neutral ship in the territorial waters of another nation is perfectly legal.

[MOBIUS]

Maybe we should seek to understand the REAL reasons Iran took our sailors?

The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis

Exclusive Report: How a bid to kidnap Iranian security officials sparked a diplomatic crisis
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 03 April 2007

A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.

Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.

In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment.

Better understanding of the seriousness of the US action in Arbil - and the angry Iranian response to it - should have led Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence to realise that Iran was likely to retaliate against American or British forces such as highly vulnerable Navy search parties in the Gulf. The two senior Iranian officers the US sought to capture were Mohammed Jafari, the powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, and General Minojahar Frouzanda, the chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to Kurdish officials.

The two men were in Kurdistan on an official visit during which they met the Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, and later saw Massoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), at his mountain headquarters overlooking Arbil.

"They were after Jafari," Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Massoud Barzani, told The Independent. He confirmed that the Iranian office had been established in Arbil for a long time and was often visited by Kurds obtaining documents to visit Iran. "The Americans thought he [Jafari] was there," said Mr Hussein.

Mr Jafari was accompanied by a second, high-ranking Iranian official. "His name was General Minojahar Frouzanda, the head of intelligence of the Pasdaran [Iranian Revolutionary Guard]," said Sadi Ahmed Pire, now head of the Diwan (office) of President Talabani in Baghdad. Mr Pire previously lived in Arbil, where he headed the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Mr Talabani's political party.

The attempt by the US to seize the two high-ranking Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi leaders is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the heads of the CIA and MI6 while they were on an official visit to a country neighbouring Iran, such as Pakistan or Afghanistan. There is no doubt that Iran believes that Mr Jafari and Mr Frouzanda were targeted by the Americans. Mr Jafari confirmed to the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, that he was in Arbil at the time of the raid.

In a little-noticed remark, Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian Foreign Minister, told IRNA: "The objective of the Americans was to arrest Iranian security officials who had gone to Iraq to develop co-operation in the area of bilateral security."

US officials in Washington subsequently claimed that the five Iranian officials they did seize, who have not been seen since, were "suspected of being closely tied to activities targeting Iraq and coalition forces". This explanation never made much sense. No member of the US-led coalition has been killed in Arbil and there were no Sunni-Arab insurgents or Shia militiamen there.

The raid on Arbil took place within hours of President George Bush making an address to the nation on 10 January in which he claimed: "Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops." He identified Iran and Syria as America's main enemies in Iraq though the four-year-old guerrilla war against US-led forces is being conducted by the strongly anti-Iranian Sunni-Arab community. Mr Jafari himself later complained about US allegations. "So far has there been a single Iranian among suicide bombers in the war-battered country?" he asked. "Almost all who involved in the suicide attacks are from Arab countries."

It seemed strange at the time that the US would so openly flout the authority of the Iraqi President and the head of the KRG simply to raid an Iranian liaison office that was being upgraded to a consulate, though this had not yet happened on 11 January. US officials, who must have been privy to the White House's new anti-Iranian stance, may have thought that bruised Kurdish pride was a small price to pay if the US could grab such senior Iranian officials.

For more than a year the US and its allies have been trying to put pressure on Iran. Security sources in Iraqi Kurdistan have long said that the US is backing Iranian Kurdish guerrillas in Iran. The US is also reportedly backing Sunni Arab dissidents in Khuzestan in southern Iran who are opposed to the government in Tehran. On 4 February soldiers from the Iraqi army 36th Commando battalion in Baghdad, considered to be under American control, seized Jalal Sharafi, an Iranian diplomat.

The raid in Arbil was a far more serious and aggressive act. It was not carried out by proxies but by US forces directly. The abortive Arbil raid provoked a dangerous escalation in the confrontation between the US and Iran which ultimately led to the capture of the 15 British sailors and Marines - apparently considered a more vulnerable coalition target than their American comrades.

The targeted generals

* MOHAMMED JAFARI

Powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, responsible for internal security. He has accused the United States of seeking to "hold Iran responsible for insecurity in Iraq... and [US] failure in the country."

* GENERAL MINOJAHAR FROUZANDA

Chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the military unit which maintains its own intelligence service separate from the state, as well as a parallel army, navy and air force

One law for the US and one law for the rest of the World as usual...

What has happened to those Iranian officials, was anything proved and if not why are they still in US custody? Were these guys really the US' objective - seems highly plausible to me the way the US runs roughshod over foreign policy and generally illegally invading people it doesn't like on made up pretexts.

How the hell can you expect other countries you demonise to follow the rules, if you're busily breaking them every day yourself!!?

In the end it is the UK that is suffering for the US' excesses in our stupid one-sided 'alliance' with them...

[Drake Tungsten]

Your really on the ball, Mobius. I only posted that the British sailors were kidnapped in retaliation for the US raid in Irbil 169 posts ago...

[MOBIUS]

Yeah, that's the OBVIOUS bit that goes without saying. However this is the actual story behind it all.

If the Iranians were caught with their hands in the cookie jar so to speak, then fair enough - this points to far more sinister aims by the US as far as I am concerned...

In isolation, the Iranians appear to have a right about effectively having their own men kidnapped for no reason. How can the US preach to the world that Iran is part of the 'Axis of Evil' when it insists on behaving worse than the very nation it is vilifying!!?

No wonder we've reached this situation with the way the US is behaving.

Iran crisis reflects growing isolation

The sense of being under siege is compounded by the US military's detention in January in Iraq of five Iranians.

Tehran says they are diplomats but the US says the men are members of the Revolutionary Guards with a mission to support Iraqi insurgents.

There has been no consular access to them, no charges brought against them and no information about where they are being kept and under what conditions.

And in December a former Iranian deputy defence minister disappeared in Turkey. Some Western media reported that he had defected to the West.

But the Iranian government and his family say he was abducted by the US or Israel.

Sound familiar?

So while the US does what the **** it likes as usual, it is the UK that has to pick up the pieces as usual.

The World is not Black and White, Drake, despite your clearly simplistic view of it...