From the Archives: Desperately Seeking a Showdown with Iran? (21 April 2008)

I am currently sitting in a four-day International Roundtable devoted to "cultural dialogue", and part of the discussion has turned to US-Iranian relations.

By unhappy coincidence, as I was setting off for the Roundtable yesterday, the Daily Telegraph put out the story, "Israel Willing to Go It Alone on Iran Attack".

I still think this is spin rather than substance, a rather crude and ineffective attempt to press Tehran. The political and economic dynamics, especially in Iraq and in the region, as well as the limits on US action, point to tension but not open conflict. Still, with the unhelpful ratcheting-up of that tension, be it in April 2008 or now, there is always the possibility of a rash over-step....



That was Then....

The first entry in this blog, posted in summer 2007, was on the detention of 15 British naval personnel by Iranian authorities. The British claimed the sailors were patrolling in Iraqi waters; Iran claimed that the crew had crossed into its territory. For several days, there was much huffing and puffing about the crisis and whether it would lead to showdown. Then the Iranians, with President Ahmadinejad smiling broadly and presenting gifts of clothes to the sailors, let the Britons go.
So it was with some nostalgia that I read, in a little-noticed piece, the surprise ending to the story: "Fifteen British sailors and Marines were seized by Iran in internationally disputed waters and not in Iraq's maritime territory as Parliament was told."

What's more, the incident because of no less than an arbitrary attempt by Washington and London to redraw the boundary between Iran and Iraq in waters which have long been a source of contention. "The Britons were seized because the US-led coalition designated a sea boundary for Irans territorial waters without telling the Iranians where it was, internal Ministry of Defence briefing papers reveal."

To be clear, Her Majesty's Government lied. Aware soon after the incident that its armed forces had crossed into disputed waters, aware that the Iranians had long claimed that this was their territory, military commanders and Ministers lied. And they continued to lie. As Minister of Defence Des Browne boldly told Parliament two months after the crisis, "There is no doubt that HMS Cornwall was operating in Iraqi waters and that the incident itself took place in Iraqi waters . . . In the early days the Iranians provided us with a set of coordinates, and asserted that was where the event took place, but when we told them the coordinates were in Iraqiwaters they changed that set and found one in their own waters. I do not think that even they sustain the position that the incident took place anywhere other than in Iraqi waters."

Why should this matter? Bluntly put, those lies could have easily been used as the pretext for military operations against Tehran. Buried on Sunday inside an excellent New York Times front-page story --- uncovering how the US media's military "experts" were little more than Pentagon mouthpieces --- was this revelation about a meeting between the experts and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:

"Days later, Mr. Rumsfeld wrote a memorandum distilling their collective guidance into bullet points. Two were underlined:

'Focus on the Global War on Terror — not simply Iraq. The wider war — the long war.'”

'Link Iraq to Iran. Iran is the concern. If we fail in Iraq or Afghanistan, it will help Iran.'
Rumsfeld, who had ordered contingency plans in 2003 for operations against Iran to follow the "liberation" of Iraq, left office three months later. The Bush Administration, however, has never publicly let go of the possibility of using the Iraqi mess as the pretext for another confrontation. Ten days ago, the President and his advisors were still spinning the line that Tehran had bolstered Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in its defence against the Iraqi Government's "Charge of the Knights" into Basra. The President told ABC News:"If they choose to infiltrate and send equipment, then we'll deal with them. And we'll get -- we're learning more about their habits and learning more about their routes. And make no mistake about it: We'll protect our troops and civilians and Iraqis."

This is Now....

All this may change, however, at least for a few months. The Bush Administration's claim that Iran was backing the Sadrist insurgency against the al-Maliki Government took "fatuous" to a new level. Given that the Iranian Government has long backed the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, whose leaders waged their campaign against Saddam Hussein from Tehran, and given that the SIIC is the largest constituency in al-Maliki's Cabinet, it's a pretty long leap to claim that Iran would want the insurgency to topple the Government. Tehran is probably hedging its bets, trying to maintain links with al-Sadr as well as the SIIC and other Shi'a groups as well as watching the Americans get themselves into more and more military trouble. Indeed, Iran claimed the political credit for ending last month's Battle of Basra, inviting all parties to Tehran and brokering a cease-fire.

Today the American newspapers finally caught up with the story. US authorities are changing their tune --- Iran will have to be part of the solution, at least for now, rather than being cast as the primary problem: "The two sides are making nice on the issue of fighting Mr. Sadr, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite clerics. As Iraqi government soldiers took control of the last areas of Basra from Mr. Sadr’s militia on Saturday, concluding a month-long effort, Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, took the unusual step of expressing strong support for the government’s position and described Mr. Sadr’s fighters as outlaws."

Let's see how long this last before another crisis --- manufactured or real --- puts "Showdown with Iran" back on the screens of CNN and Fox.