A
Humiliating Episode For Britain
By Chris Marsden
05 April, 2007
World
Socialist Web
Iran’s
release of the 15 British naval personnel captured in the Gulf is the
dénouement of a humiliating episode for the Blair government
and for British imperialism.
Since they were captured
by Iranian naval forces in the Shatt al Arab waterway, the sailors and
marines have come to epitomise the gap between Britain’s pretensions
as a world power and its actual capabilities.
Prime Minister Tony Blair’s
response to the incident, with repeated declarations that he was seeking
a diplomatic solution, is not an indication of a new pacifist turn by
one of the architects of the Iraq war. It was forced upon him by his
reliance on the United States, both politically and militarily.
The sailors seized were part
of Britain’s contingent in a US-led naval force that includes
two aircraft carriers. This force has been mustered by the Bush administration
as part of its political campaign against Tehran, demanding that Iran
end its nuclear programme and alleged sponsorship of the insurgency
in Iraq.
Blair has acted as Washington’s
key ally in seeking to isolate the Iranian regime and impose the strictest
sanctions possible, with the attendant preparations for a possible military
assault in future.
But Blair’s efforts
to enable Britain to punch above its weight by an alliance with the
US have suffered a grave setback as a result of the debacle in Iraq,
something of which Iran is fully aware and which conditioned its attitude
to London’s demands for the sailors to be released.
The Iranian regime avoided
any bellicose posturing, but continually insisted that the British personnel
were captured because they had trespassed into its waters. Its diplomats
were successful in countering the Blair government’s somewhat
half-hearted attempts to take a hard line, portraying this and Britain’s
refusal to admit wrongdoing as an arrogant effort to inflame the situation.
Tehran will have calculated
that Britain could not move independently of the US. And, in turn, the
ability of Washington’s more bellicose elements to win support
for a military response was weakened. Within American ruling circles,
there is significant opposition to a military attack on Iran, particularly
under conditions where the US is still bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Internationally, the US finds itself isolated.
There were clear calls from
the neoconservative media and think-tanks for the capture of the British
to be met with a hostile response, or at least that it not to be allowed
to divert from such action in the near future. Mario Loyola wrote in
the National Review online edition that “the United States must
make it clear to the Iranians that abandoning the non-proliferation
regime will trigger a military confrontation. The British should have
defended the hostages when they were surrounded. The United States cannot
now be paralyzed in its response to Iran out of a desire to protect
a group of sailors from an allied country that was incapable of protecting
them itself... Otherwise, in a few years, Iran could be holding all
of us hostage.”
But the best that Bush could
offer such of his supporters was to insist that the captured sailors
were “hostages” and that they should be handed over unconditionally.
Washington’s difficulties
contributed to London only being able to secure the most limited formal
censure of Iran’s actions at the United Nations and from the European
Union.
Within Britain, the more
bellicose voices in the media were opposed by those insisting that diplomacy
be given chance to work, particularly with British lives at stake.
In both countries, moreover,
military action meets its most serious opposition among working people.
Neither Bush nor Blair is in a position to simply push for an immediate
attack on Iran in the face of popular hostility to their war-mongering—and
a belief that both are inveterate liars. Even a poll by the right-wing
Daily Telegraph found that a mere seven percent of respondents had been
convinced by the jingoistic media campaign against Iran that military
action should be taken.
In the end, despite Bush’s
insistence that there should be no quid pro quo, Iran appears to have
been able to secure certain concessions in return for releasing the
15, most notably the release by Iraq of Iranian diplomat Jalal Sharafi,
seized two months ago by gunmen in Iraqi military uniforms. Washington
is also considering an Iranian request to visit five of its officials
seized in January by the US military in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil
and held incommunicado for more than two months.
It was in these circumstances
that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad mounted yesterday’s
press conference to mark the Persian New Year, during which he again
insisted that the British sailors and marines had invaded Iran’s
waters. After first attacking the West for its Middle East policy, he
announced that the sailors would be released as a “gift”
to Britain and that they were pardoned in order to mark both the Prophet
Muhammad’s birthday on March 30 and the Easter holiday.
After asking Blair not to
punish the 15 for having admitted to being in Iranian territorial waters,
he continued, “Instead of occupying the other countries, I ask
Mr. Blair to think about the justice, to think about the truth and work
for the British people, not for himself.”
Whereas no concessions had
been made by the British government to secure the releases, Britain
had pledged “that the incident would not be repeated,” he
said.
Speaking later yesterday,
Blair did not thank the Iranian president, but addressed the Iranian
people, stating, “We bear you no ill will. We respect Iran as
an ancient civilisation. The disagreement we have with your government
we wish to resolve peacefully... in the future we hope to do so.”
Blair’s attempt to
take the moral high ground is both nauseating and not to be believed,
given that similar statements by him could be cited with respect to
Iraq. No one should believe that the setback he has suffered will mean
a let-up.
For its part, Washington
responded aggressively to Ahmadinejad’s move, particularly his
statement that Iran could reconsider its relations with the US if President
Bush’s attitude changed.
Insisting that there would
be no change in US policy—and therefore no lessening of the danger
of war—State Department spokesman Tom Casey said, “The behaviour
that needs to change is the Iranians’, not the United States.”
The US would only deal directly
with Iran if it gave up its uranium enrichment programme, he added.
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