Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiAmericans Offered 'Aggressive Patrols' in Iranian Airspace
The US offered to take military action on behalf of the 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran, including buzzing Iranian Revolutionary Guard positions with warplanes, the Guardian has learned.In the first few days after the captives were seized and British diplomats were getting no news from Tehran on their whereabouts, Pentagon officials asked their British counterparts: what do you want us to do? They offered a series of military options, a list which remains top secret given the mounting risk of war between the US and Iran. But one of the options was for US combat aircraft to mount aggressive patrols over Iranian Revolutionary Guard bases in Iran, to underline the seriousness of the situation.
The British declined the offer and said the US could calm the situation by staying out of it. London also asked the US to tone down military exercises that were already under way in the Gulf. Three days before the capture of the 15 Britons , a second carrier group arrived having been ordered there by president George Bush in January. The aim was to add to pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme and alleged operations inside Iraq against coalition forces.
At the request of the British, the two US carrier groups, totalling 40 ships plus aircraft, modified their exercises to make them less confrontational.
The British government also asked the US administration from Mr Bush down to be cautious in its use of rhetoric, which was relatively restrained throughout.
The incident was a reminder of how inflammatory the situation in the Gulf is. According to some US and British officers, there is already a proxy war under way between their forces and elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Meanwhile, the Iranians are convinced that separatist guerrilla attacks in Khuzestan and Baluchistan provinces are the work of British and US intelligence respectively. Earlier this week, ABC television news reported that a Baluchi group, Jundullah, based in Pakistan and carrying out raids inside Iran, had been receiving advice and encouragement from American officials since 2005.
A senior Iranian source with close ties to the Revolutionary Guard, told the Guardian: "If this had been between Iranian and American soldiers it could have been the beginning of an accidental war."
With the crisis now over, a remarkable degree of consensus is emerging among British, Iranian and Iraqi officials about what happened over 13 nervous days - namely that the decision to seize the Britons was taken locally, and was not part of a grander scheme cooked up in Tehran.
"My best guess is that this was a local incident which became an international incident," said one British source closely involved in the crisis.
Both sides had been watching each other closely for years across the disputed line separating the Iranian and Iraqi sides of the Shatt al-Arab waterway and the northern Gulf beyond and British officials say that Iranian boats regularly infringe on foreign waters.
The senior Iranian source meanwhile, claimed there had been three British incursions into Iranian waters in the three months leading up to the capture and that the decision to detain the British naval crew on March 23 was taken by a regional Revolutionary Guard commander, responsible for the waterway.
Once the 15 captives were brought back to Iran, their stay was guaranteed to be unpleasant. The Pasdaran (as the Revolutionary Guards are universally known in Farsi) are a law unto themselves, feared within Iran for their thuggish methods.
There is also general agreement in London and Tehran that once the crisis had been triggered it took nearly two weeks to untangle, because their release had to be agreed by all the key players in the perpetual poker game that passes for government in Tehran. But those players could not be reached because they were scattered around the country for the No Rouz (new year) holiday.
"Nobody who counted was answering the phone," said one senior British official. "By the time the Iranian leaders got back from the holiday [on Tuesday] the phone was ringing off the hook, including from people they didn't expect, calling on them to release the captives quickly."
Among those unexpected callers were their closest allies, the Syrians, as well as leaders from far-flung states with no direct stake in the Gulf. Even the Colombian government issued a protest.
Another surprise intervention came from the Vatican. Hours before Wednesday's release, a letter from Pope Benedict was handed to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It said the Pope was confident that men of goodwill could find a solution. He asked the supreme leader to do what he could to ensure that the British sailors and marines were reunited with their families in time for Easter. It would, he said, be a significant religious gesture of goodwill from the Iranian people.
What impact the Pope's message had is impossible to assess. But some of its language was reflected at the press conference at which the release of the 15 Britons was announced. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the decision to "forgive" the sailors and marines had been taken "on the occasion of the birthday of the great prophet [Muhammad] ... and for the occasion of the passing of Christ".
The Iraqi government also played a critical role, pushing for consular access to five Iranians who had been arrested by US forces in Irbil and had been in custody since January, and helping organise the mysterious release of an Iranian diplomat who had been in captivity since February.
In the first days of the crisis, Iraqi officials also helped the British to identify the exact boundaries of Iraqi waters, the Guardian has learned, suggesting the British were not as certain of their case as they had publicly claimed.
But it was the unexpected release of Jalal Sharifa, the second secretary at the Iranian embassy, that raised most eyebrows, fuelling speculation that some kind of bargaining was going on. The diplomat had been missing since he was plucked from the streets of Baghdad on February 4. Iran blamed US forces in Iraq for ordering the diplomat's abduction, but US military officials denied the claims. Baghdad's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, however, has insisted that negotiations over Mr Sharafi had been under way long before March 23.
Some credit for the abrupt release of the British naval crew has also been given to Tony Blair's top foreign policy adviser, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, who got through to his Iranian counterpart, Ari Larijani for the first time the night before Mr Ahmadinejad made his surprise announcement. The opening of a Sheinwald-Larijani channel of communication is being hailed as one of the few pluses to emerge from the affair.
The crucial decision for release was taken on Tuesday by the supreme national security council. It includes representatives of the presidency, the armed forces and the Revolutionary Guard, and Tuesday was the first day they could all be brought together following the No Rouz holiday.
"I think they realised pretty quickly the game was not worth the candle," a senior British government source said.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
11 Comments so far
Show AllAs reported by the Guardian above, "The British declined the offer and said the US could calm the situation by staying out of it."
Pelosi said that Bush needs to "take a deep breath and calm down."
Both abroad and at home, Bush is being TOLD to calm down and back-off.
This may well be the turning point in mussling the nasty chimp faux-emperor.
The key outcome of the British resolution, and the calm diplomacy of the rest of the world is precisely to totally 'isolate' Bush and his war-mongering Empire.
Bush claims to have been trying to 'isolate' Iran, but the isolation has turned instead on Bush ---- Bush and the pro-war Empire are instead being isolated by all countries in our world, and all people in the US.
This Bushian Empire is now fully isolated and about to collapse. It's arrogant war-mongering and its economic oppression are being clearly seen by all people in the world and by all average and honest 'working class' Americans for what the Empire really is ---- a totally isolated, snarling, arrogant, bully of elite neocons, crony-cons, capitalist-cons, and simply cons.
The situation of British and Iranian negotiated settlement and avoidance of more war escalation to nuclear holocaust has actually shown the inherient weakness, hollowness, and mostly 'isolation' of the global corporate elite Empire ---- which will now collapse of its own extreme elitist minority of arrogance and hierarchy of hate.
Good people everywhere will simply reject and 'walk away from' this corrupt pyramid of Empire dependent as it is on war, deceit, and tyranny.
As Hannah Arendt said, and we now can see of the isolated Bush Empire, "Empire abroad entails tyranny at home" --- and all the average, non-elite people of the world benefit from neither.
The British declined the offer and said the US could calm the situation by staying out of it.
...
A senior Iranian source with close ties to the Revolutionary Guard, told the Guardian: "If this had been between Iranian and American soldiers it could have been the beginning of an accidental war."
If that's not an eerie premonition, I'm a bag of hammers. Both the article and the cogent series of comments leave me feeling that war with Iran is inevtiable. But wait...what was that the old Once-ler said in Dr. Seuss's "The Lorax?" Unless...
Now, can America find that last Truffula seed of sanity? I'm an atheist, but God, I hope so!
What's with the line "Their stay was guaranteed to be unpleasant"? That's false, according to the former captives' first statements on arriving back in Britain.
Even more damaging to the goal of peace and to the Guardian's credibility is their lead-paragraph use of the phrase "the mounting risk of war between the US and Iran."
To be clear: any war would be a U.S. attack, and any claims to the contrary lies foisted on a public softened up by sloppy reporting even in articles like this one, which on the face of it is about U.S. attempts to provoke a war.
Also interesting are the off-hand claims that somehow Iran's government doesn't function like other governments. Iran's rulers are right-wing religious fanatics (a predictable result of the U.S. and U.K.'s sixty-year effort to eradicate socialist parties and any leftist activism), but not only do they act like any other government, but they played the situation perfectly and outmaneuvered the vast resources of the U.S. and U.K governments and propaganda outlets.
~ ben :: http://pwgd.org :: http://melanconent.com
Imagine if some Iranians were floating around off the coast of Briton or say Manhatten in a rubber boat. I dont think we would ever see them again....this whole story is a wonderful tale of propaganda in action.....I am allready against this third war. and you know king george is just chomping at the bit.
So at what point do all of those who thought Rosie O'Donnell was nuts or even out of place need to send an apology to her? Surprise!! If you track the history of US foreign policy it undermines, overthrows via covert ops, assassinates and basically destroys any democracy ever attempted to be started. A Democratic election will not always produce a democratic government. It is both ignorant & arrogant to assume people hate us because they refuse to live like us. First of all we would need 3 planets to support this one if everyone lived like we do in the US. No, I'm not bashing, just simply asking for someone, anyone to begin to apply logic and reason to the problems we face. Do some reading and you'll see how we rarely support democracy and in fact it is our lack of that support which has caused many in Iran to hate us today. Make no mistake about this, the design of the neocons was to create a quagmire in the Middle East so we could be justified in occupaying the place to secure the oil for ourselves. nothing less, nothing more. Sunni's v. Shiite is the divide, oil and money is the conquer.
Tony - Gotta love the sense of humor! Thanks for the quotes! Shrub is just more dangerous than his predcessors, but not very different.
Off with their heads! Off with their heads, said the Queen......Oh, I forgot, we have to have a trial first.....then....
Off with their heads!
I think they realised pretty quickly the game was not worth the candle," a senior British government source said.
The opening of a Sheinwald-Larijani channel of communication is being hailed as one of the few pluses to emerge from the affair.
Just when the Sheinwald-Larijari cooler heads won out some anonymous , senior British government jackass taunted the Iranians with a kindergarter's sandbox Neeah , Neeah ; you blinked first . Maybe next as there will be with kind of talk a different set of fifteen will be executed in public for all Britons and Americans including the jackass to see.
Maybe next time the Iranians won't blink.
Being hounded from all sides by the UN , European Union , USA and Briton for possession or non-possession of nuclear weapons they may decide to go for broke with the rationale that if they are going to be bombed by US or Israel anyway then why not destroy Istael first.
Just a guess though
Again with the "accidental war."
US taxpayers can do their part to reign in the Pentagon by reducing their taxable income. Instead of working overtime at your job so you can hire a contractor to upgrade your house you can cut your work hours and do the upgrade yourself. In the first scenario, the Pentagon reaps a tax on the income you make to pay the contractor and another tax on the contractor's profit and his employees' labor. In the second scenario, the Pentagon doesn't reap a penny.
When I read articles like this I get so enraged at the arrogance of US and British capitalism. Imagine Russian, Chinese or Iranian warships playing their war games in or near the English channel or the coast of California.
Never mind that the US organized a coup in Iran in 1953 that overthrew the secular democratic government of Mossadegh.
The interference in this part of the world by US and British imperialism is renowned. The US has been the main obstacle to the development of secularism and democracy in the middle east. The Iranians have every cause to be suspicious.
And we should thank the US and Britain for the Mullahs. It was these governments that installed the murderous Shah.
The American planes would have been shot down before they could leave the Iranian airspace, I promise you that!