Caught in the Strait

by Dr Binoy Kampmark

It is clear that the United Kingdom could not have thought this through.  Was it a touch of the Suez jitters, the haunting syndrome of 1956 leaving a false impression that the Old Empire still had it?  To taunt a power already under the watchful and punitive eye of the United States was never a recipe for equanimity and calm repose. But taunt they did, using 30 Royal Marines to detain an Iranian tanker Grace I in Gibraltar last month.

The official justification was unconvincing: the need to enforce European Union sanctions against the regime of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.  The vessel had been supposedly on route to Syria. Some in the diplomatic fraternity were perplexed: it had not previously been UK policy to diligently pursue the impounding of vessels bound for Syria with Iranian cargo.

Local Spanish authorities sensed the hand of US pressure, of which squeezing oil revenue is one; as well as they might, given the unbridled joy expressed by President Donald Trump’s national security advisor, John Bolton.  “Excellent news: UK has detained the supertanker Grace I laden with Iranian oil bound for Syria in violation of US sanctions.” The US and its allies would “continue to prevent regimes in Tehran & Damascus from profiting off this illicit trade.”

Former Swedish prime minister and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations outlinedsome of the inconsistencies in the UK approach.  “The legality of the UK seizure of a tanker heading for Syria with oil from Iran intrigues me.  One refers to EU sanctions against Syria, but Iran is not a member of the EU.  And the EU as a principle doesn’t impose its sanctions on others.  That’s what the US does.”

Becoming the US running dog on enforcement was not going to sit well with Iran.  The Mullahs are spoiling for a fight.  On May 20, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, cast an eye to historical examples of Persian resistance.  President Donald Trump would fail as others had in their efforts to subdue his country.  Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan had tried, and not succeeded.  (The foreign minister’s sense of history is only as good as his sense of relativity: the Persian entity was, for a time, conquered, but the conquest was never indefinite.)

The seizures of vessels constitute a recipe for a tit-for-tat calamity.  We are already seeing the bitter fruit of the harvest arising out of the seizure of Grace I. Two oil tankers – the UK registered Stena Impero, and the Mesdar, another Liberian registered vessel though British operated – were subsequently seized in the Strait of Hormuz.  The Mesdar’s detention was threatening though teasingly brief; the Stena Impero, on the other hand, was to be made an example of.

Another oil tanker has since fallen into the hands of the Iranian forces, one accused of smuggling some 700,000 litres of fuel to Arab states.  “The seizure of the oil tanker,” noted IRGC commander Ramezan Zirahi, “was in coordination with Iran’s judiciary authorities and based on their order.”

In all of this, the UK has made a fateful decision: the US is there to be supported in a policy to protect merchant ships against Iranian efforts.  But Washington has assisted in creating the problem for which it now claims to have the solutions.  It is the supplied choice of a current empire to a former one, and the current empire is keen on misbehaving.  The forces of the US imperium have been doing their bit to ensnare Iran in a troubling vice, be it from al-Asad airbase in Iraq, to Qatar.  At sea, the US Navy holds forth with its carrier strike group.  Sanctions have been ramped; the Iran nuclear deal dumped upon and exited.  The Trump administration persists in causing a certain modicum of mayhem.

Putting up your hands for an unconditional commitment to a US-led effort cuts against the grain for a united European-controlled mission in the strait.  European powers also feel they must be firm, just not in the Trump way. The result has seen hesitation and concern about whether Germany and France might be added to any cobbled coalition.  Farther afield, Australia has also fielded a requestfrom Washington described as “serious and complex”, one that would see oil shipments from Iranian incursions being protected.  Australian Defence Minister Linda Reynolds has not been exactly forthcoming in any way on what qualifies the request as complex and serious, though, like a long retained servant to the lord of a manor, makes it sound grander than it is.

Now, Britain finds itself stretched, the rubber man of international relations keen to maintain shape, if only in distorted fashion.  Iran was bold, even brazen, but its forces feel they have every right to be.  The current conventions are for ditching; the protocols of old are being thrown out like stagnant dishwater.  Now, in with the new, the asymmetrical teasing, be it through sponsored agents in Yemen, allies in Iraq, or a chance to seize, if only arbitrarily, various assets in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iranian actions have done their bit to strike a degree of consternation.  Moez Hayat, penning a view in The National Interest, exemplifies that consternation.  Iran struck when the UK lacked awareness and cogency.  “Functionally, Britain was leaderless as Iranian forces boarded the vessel.  Prime Minister Theresa May was a lame duck, unable to act as the Conservative Party elected a successor.”  The problems go far deeper than that, telling of European disunity and continued US bellicosity.  On this occasion, a simpler assessment is that Britain was caught in the strait, a true US set-up with continuing consequences.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.

Double standards in case of tankers

Tehran, July 22, IRAN - The British forces in an illegal measure and contrary to the international norms and laws seized Panamanian tanker carrying Iranian oil about two weeks ago in the Strait of Gibraltar; the response of the US and its allies, as well as the Western media empire was silence. An international controversy was formed when Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz in Persian Gulf halted a British ship violating the maritime laws.

In regard to these double-standards in dealing with international issues, some points which are considered issues related to discrimination in international relations have to be addressed.

First, the Zionist and Persian Gulf sheikhs' controlled-media empire are busy in completing Iranophobia project, and in the case of oil tankers they are looking for inducing that Iran is undermining the security of international waters.

The British seized the Iranian ship without any reason; it was an entirely out-of-international law practice, which was necessary even for international organizations to denounce it, in which the Panamanian government stated that it will make a lawsuit against the British government in this regard, but the British ship was stopped by Iranian troops, faced with a controversy, in practice violated the rules of shipping.

The British ship had made insecure the route of the ships in the Strait of Hormuz from a high-risk route, opposite and turning off its navigation system, and later, as the incident became a disaster for London, they claimed that the Russians had tampered the navigation system of this ship so that the ship route would be diverted.

The second point is that foreign governments and media out of the US-led coalition do not have the courage or power to confront, although these innovations can happen in other countries in the future; if not in the sea, on land!

The third point is that member-states of the Security Council, because of special privileges stemming from military power, proclaim they have permitted to carry out illegal activities and high-risk behaviors, and they have been affected by illusion that others should follow the policy they are dictating, and under-domination states have also fueled these illusions.

Now, the clarification of the dimensions of these incidents has proved that the dangerous adventure of the British has endangered global security, in the context of the Brexit-based political crisis in London, and the international media quoted American officials and British have made it clear that this London’s action has been taken on the advice of the Bolton-led hawkish officials and is fundamentally political in nature.

Therefore, under the international law, especially in the context of providing security of international waterways and straits, the right of Islamic Republic of Iran will be preserved to sue the British government in international legal and judicial tribunals; the first one due to the illegal action of seizing oil tanker carrying Iranian oil in Gibraltar, which constitutes piracy, and the latter threatening the route of the ships in the Strait of Hormuz!

Those who sit outside the playing field have, in the face of two incidents, taken biased stances while the starter of a dangerous maritime game has been an unstable London government, and this is a dangerous practice in international affairs.