My initial reaction to the news that a group of British sailors and marines had been seized by the Iranians—that it was a case of the actions of an overzealous ship’s captain being exploited for domestic political gain by the Iranian regime—is becoming less and less supportable. Austin Bay’s observation
Britain says it has definitive evidence its personnel were in Iraqi territory. Even if they strayed into Iranian water, the fact the sailors and marines were surrounded and outgunned suggests a planned operation.
is sounding more like the ticket. If the videos I’ve seen of the actual detention of the British sailors by the Iranians are authentic, they would seem to confirm the notion that the operation was planned. Walid Phares has claimed that the operation was planned months in advance.
Why? It seems to me that there are any number of reasons. First, a show of bravado on the part of the Iranian regime and shows of obeisance by the Brits could tend to shore up the political support for the regime both domestically and in the region. And then there’s this:
VIENNA, Austria – Oil prices rebounded above $64 a barrel Thursday, reflecting an upward blip in tensions over Iran’s detention of 15 British navy personnel, after London said it would take the issue to the U.N. Security Council.
Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, is located along the Strait of Hormuz, through which about two-fifths of the world’s oil is transported. Traders worry that oil supplies could be disrupted if unrest escalates there.
After opening lower, light, sweet crude for May delivery rose 6 cents to $64.14 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by afternoon in Europe. The contract settled at $64.08 a barrel Wednesday, its highest close since September.
May Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose 36 cents to $66.14 a barrel.
Oil spiked briefly above $68 a barrel in after-hours trading late Tuesday on a rumor — denied by the U.S. military — that Iran had fired on a U.S. ship in the Persian Gulf.
“The hypersensitivity to the geopolitical situation is setting the market up for vastly increased volatility ahead,” said Fimat USA analyst John Kilduff.
Other suggestions have been that the Iranians were looking for something to trade in exchange for their five operatives taken prisoner in Iraq by U. S. forces last month or that the Iranian regime is being deliberately provocative, hoping to force a confrontation.
In my view, if the Brits don’t have solid evidence for the location of their vessel when apprehended, they should mouth the necessary formulas and bring an end to the matter. If, however, they do have solid evidence that the vessel was in Iraqi waters, what’s next?
Responding with force would be an error. It wouldn’t necessarily secure the release of the British sailors, it could produce a “rally ’round†surge in support for the Iranian regime, and it would likely cause a further increase in the price of oil—all of which would benefit the regime.
IMO the correct response would be one that increased the pressure on the Iranian regime by putting a wedge between the Iranian people and the regime. I’m open to suggestions. Go to the Security Council and ask for a ban on sales of gasoline to Iran until the sailors are released?
Put up a naval blockade of the offshore gas field at South Pars. Trade land for peace. It may cause a rallying reaction, but since it doesn’t inflict direct punishment on the Iranian people that effect might be muted.
It would have the added benefit of forcing protesters to denounce “Big Gas,” rather than “Big Oil.” I think we can all see the advantage in that.
The AP today, in its round-up of some of the developments, quotes expert Kaiyan Kaikobad, author of “The Shatt al-Arab Boundary Question,” as saying the co-ordinates given by the UK are in “an area where no legal boundary exists, leaving it unclear whose territory it lies in.”
I’ve an idea. Let both nations admit that the area is disputed and that neither can claim ownership of the whole truth in this matter. Let Iran return their prisoners to the UK or even a neutral third party. Let Britain then undertake to use its up-coming position as chair of the UN Security Council to push its allies, including Iraq and the US, to once-and-for-all resolve the territorial disputes in the Shatt al-Arab with a sympathetic ear for Iran’s opinions. Everyone wins, the world becomes more stable, such diplomatic steps would have a beneficial knock-on into many other areas of tension in the region.
The trouble is, it’s always easier to escalate than to calm things down.
Regards, C
There’s a shortcoming on your proposal, Cernig. Under the Convention on the Laws of the Sea, to which Iran is a signatory, even considering the possibility that the area in question is disputed, Iran has not behaved according to its obligations. The British crew should not have been apprehended; at most they should have been warned.
By any reasonable yardstick Iran is in the wrong in this matter.
Hi Dave,
I agree that under the Laws of the Sea, if this were acknowledged a priori as a disputed area then Iraq would have been in the wrong. However, the Iranians obviously felt it was their waters, in which case the detention would be legal under Iranian law in Iranian waters. Proving which is or isn’t the case is really the crux of the whole thing. The UK have, in the opinion of this Brit, failed to prove their case convincingly as much as the Iranians have failed to prove theirs.
It would take a climb-down from both sides to accomplish my suggestion. That’s why it’s probably a non-starter.
Regards, C
First of all there is the issue of the various locations. The UK and Iran are not arguing about a TTW dispute since they are claiming the incident took place in completely different locations – each of which is clearly in one or the other’s TTW. When I mentioned originally the conflicting TTW claims I was guessing that the Brits were close to the line most people recognize as the border (and the line that appears on most nautical charts used by mariners), but the British coordinates were almost 2 miles away – clearly inside Iraqi TTW by any definition. Had they been closer to that line and had the Iranians not come out with their own conflicting location, I think my original disputed waters analysis would be accurate, but that’s not the case anymore.
Secondly, the Iranian coordinates are completely bogus in my view. First, they’ve given two different locations. Second, the coalition takes TTW and airspace violations very seriously. There is no way the British would have been operating in the area the Iranian’s claim they were since we recognize the demarcation between the two countries is much further south. In the 1990’s I saw two squadron Commanders from my Air Wing get reprimanded because two of their pilots inadvertently went 1/2 mile into Iranian airspace at Farsi island. The Iranians never knew they were there and Farsi island is a nothing but an empty rock, but those Commanders still got reprimanded. So I see no way, particularly with todays modern GPS navigation, the Brits could be anywhere near where the Iranians claim they were.
Third, why were the Brits taken and not the merchant ship crew since the merchant ship was also supposedly in Iranian TTW? The Brits had a helicopter over the merchant ship almost immediately after the incident yet the Iranians are not claiming it violated their airspace.
As more evidence comes in, it’s becoming more and more clear that this was a planned operation. The Iranians closely follow the activities of CTF 158 and they were undoubtedly familiar with VBSS (Visit, Board, Search and Seizure) operations. There is a sunken crane that straddles the US, UK, and Iraqi recognized border less than a mile from the Iraqi KAA oil terminal. Part still sticks above the water – the base is actually in Iranian TTW, but the part above the surface actually leans over into Iraqi waters. Anyway, the IRGC mans this old sunken crane and they monitor US and Iraqi naval activity carefully. They’d be in a position to know when it was safe for their bag team to grab the Brits – which is when they went to search a ship a few miles away and therefore too far for the Cornwall to react in time.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. I think the Iranians have miscalculated here and they’ve forgotten that many in the west still see the 1979-80 hostage crisis as the defining moment in their regime. I don’t think they’ll get anything substantive from this misadventure and will be hard pressed to find a face-saving exit.
Andy, it may not look to us as though the Iranians will get anything substantive from this affair but it may look very differently to them. First off, I’d say they’d already gotten something: oil had been around $60 a barrel since the first of the year; now it’s over $65. That has real meaning to the Iranians: $35 million to the bottom line so far according to this article. It could be billions before it’s over.
Second, as I noted above, standing up to the UK (and, implicitly, the US) may buy the regime some political standing. That could potentially be very important to them if the sanctions already imposed are starting to pinch.
Dave,
If Iran did this to get a marginal raise in the price of oil and some short-term political benefits, then they are more desperate than I had imagined. I think they had grander schemes that won’t be realized, but time will tell.
I think, as Cernig points out too, it would be constructive to listen to the Iranian side as well. I’ve been watching different TV channels in the past couple of days and I’ve not seen any Iranian representative talking about this issue. Lack of communication can sometimes be very dangerous. The channels that I can watch in Canada keep showing the picture of the handheld GPS unit (in a helicopter) above the inspected [Indian?] ship. They use it as the proof that the Britons were inside Iraqi waters…. OK, the ship was in Iraqi waters. But this doesn’t prove that the British vessels were in Iraqi waters too. (apparently the Britons were not in the vicinity of the inspected ship when the incident occurred).
The Iranians, too, have a story to tell: Iranian TV showed a confiscated GPS system that, as they claim, clearly indicates that the British troops were 450 meters within the Iranian borders. (BBC-Persian reported on this too). The Iranian TV also claimed that this kind of territory violations is not new and has happened before. IRNA has put up a list of recent territory violations:
http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0703297653191420.htm
The most challenging part of this whole issue is as to why these navy personnel are not released yet. I am hoping that they will all be released very soon.
While I agree that we need to listen to both sides of the story and I appreciate your link to the IRNA list of British incursions into Iranian territory (only one side of the story), I think you’re cutting the Iranians too much slack.
These sorts of trivial incursions are commonplace everywhere. The regular, accepted, and proper reaction to them is a warning and an opportunity to correct the situation. How do I know that this didn’t happen in this case? Neither the Brits nor the Iranians are claiming that happened so I think it’s a reasonable conclusion that it didn’t.
Nothing in anybody’s account of the incident suggests to me that a peremptory seizing of the (possibly) offending service personnel was warrranted. Consequently, the rosiest interpretation of events is that the Iranians were truculent and combative.
Again, as I’ve suggested in my post, to me the most likely interpretation of events is that the Iranians believe that they’re benefiting in some way by the present circumstances. Following my practice, I assume that the Iranians are acting rationally and I’ve suggested a number of possibilities.
Yes, it would have been nicer if Iranians could warn the British navy personnel and escort them to the Iraqi waters.
You mentioned that these incursions happens everywhere and that “the Iranians were truculent and combative”, while neglecting the fact that the Iranian coast guard is there to protect its territory, neglecting the fact that Iran is under constant threat of being attacked, neglecting the fact that serious incursions had previously occurred, and neglecting the fact that the British government (and military) had been previously warned. If Iranians are “combative” when they protect their own land, what do you call the adventures by US and/or UK in the middle east?
Unlike what you said, I think keeping these marines is very detrimental to Iran’s interests. I think it only serves the political interests of Iran’s conservative party (with its anti-anything-western rhetorics). I have read that reformists are going to request an immediate release.
The thing is that the Brits, nor the US have blatantly or intentionally entered Iranian waters. In fact, we are very careful not to. The Iranians, on the other hand, frequently enter Iraqi waters and the Brits they captured last time were captured in the Shatt al Arab – a waterway that is supposed to allow freedom of navigation for all vessels. So I disagree with Dave that these sorts of incursions are common by the US, UK or Iraq. The exceptions have historically been freedom of navigation operations to delegitimize illegal Iranian straight baseline claims for their TWW’s. In addition, TTW are not “owned” by a nation in the way that land territory is. ALL vessels under the Law of the Sea have the inherent right of innocent passage through any nation’s TTW. That is why ships are able to freely transit through the strait of Hormuz and why the shipping channels in the southern Persian Gulf run directly through Iranian TTW. So every single day hundreds of ships are legitimately passing through Iranian TTW, including US and other naval warships. Iran cannot pick and choose which vessels have a right to innocent passage and which do not. In order to enter the Shatt, vessels MUST pass through Iranian TTW.
BTW, for those not familiar with the area, Shatt al Arab is what the Arabic world calls the waterway, but Iran refers to it as the Arvandrud or Arvand River.
Dear Andy,
Labeling Iran’s straight baseline claims as “illegal” seems to be very easy. But proving it is hard. As you said, “ALL vessels under the Law of the Sea have the inherent right of innocent passage”, but take a look at the definition of innocent passage:
“Passage is innocent so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State.”
It shouldn’t be surprising if Iran doesn’t think such incursions are not “innocent”. Iran has a legitimate right to be worried as it is constantly under threat of being attacked. (Please don’t tell me that thousands of US and UK troops in Iraq are there only to secure PEACE in the region)
BTW, Saddam and the Shah of Iran (US’s ex.) signed a treaty in 1973 and resolved the territorial dispute. After revolution, Saddam tore the treaty in front of TV cameras and attacked Iran. It seems that in this matter, UK has an interest in backing Saddam’s illegal/unilateral termination of the treaty.
Amir,
You’re mistaken on a couple of points. For a summary of US disputes on Iranian claims, see this document:
http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/20051m_062305/Iran.doc
Iran’s straight baseline claims aren’t really germane to this situation, but those are briefly discussed in there. For comparison, Libya claimed the entire Gulf of Sidra as it’s TTW in the 1980’s using straight baseline claims. Iran’s aren’t nearly as egregious, but straight baselines are only supposed to be used to determine internal waters, not to extend TTW.
First, you’re assuming the Brits actually violated Iranian TTW. The operational area for CTF 158 is defined here:
http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/server/show/nav.00h00400100500700e002
And from my extensive experience in the Gulf, I find there is no reason that the Brits would operate outside that established area. The main mission of the Brits is to inspect shipping bound for Iraqi ports and to protect the two Oil Terminals which are critical to Iraq’s economy. They can’t do that if they’re up in Iranian waters. Although the position the Brits were taken is in dispute, only Iran at this point claims the incident took place inside Iranian TTW. The Brits have shown their evidence, and the merchant ship (Indian Flagged) agreed with the Brits.
Iran knows full well that the US troops in Iraq are no threat to Iran. They are not equipped for any kind of offensive military action. They have only a handful of tanks and mechanized vehicles, and no mobile artillery. They are, essentially, a light infantry force. In order to invade Iran or otherwise threaten Iran the US would need forces organized and equipped similar to those that participated in OIF – Heavy, mobile, armored, kinetic forces, not an occupation force like what is there now. Any Iranian General with an ounce of military knowledge understands this basic fact and knows that the US cannot suddenly invade Iran.
You’re right about the treaty and that Saddam tore it up. It was a factor in Saddam’s reasoning for attacking Iran at the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war. That treaty established a thalweg line as the division between the two countries and that line is what Saddam rejected. The US and UK, however, recognize the line as the official border today and it seems like Iran does as well.
I have a nautical chart I will try to upload later tonight to show the various claimed positions of the the vessels, the underwater topography, as well as the border defined by the Thalweg principle and Algiers accord.
And then there is this:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1605487,00.html
And this:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070330/ap_on_re_eu/britain_iran_letters_home
“Laws of the sea?” Tony Blair lies to his people in 2003 that Iraq can attack them with devastating results, in 45 minutes, in order to justify an invasion of Iran’s bordering neighbor. But Iran should play by Queensbury
rules concerning the Laws of the sea?” Right.
Not going to get to the chart tonight – it’s a 280MB digital file that needs some work to make it web-ready but still readable. I went looking and found that Iranian charts of the region are commercially available. A comparison between the US and Iranian chart would be interesting, but I don’t want to invest $80 to find out. If anyone else is interested, it can be ordered here:
http://www.cartographic.com/xq/asp/iran/nautical/charts/iranian/nautical/charts/rid.131/tid.2/sid.777/cid.2000005/vid.0/oid.0/qx/hub/index.asp
Additionally, the Times online has an interesting article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1582544.ece