Who do we believe - Britain or Iran?

[BushOut06]

Iran says the British sailors that were captured admitted they had crossed into Iranian waters.

The British government denies this, claiming they were in Iraqi waters.

With as many lies as the US and Britain have told over the years, I really have a hard time believing anything they say. At the same time, I would also find it hard to believe that Iran would intentionally try to further inflame tensions by crossing into Iraqi territory and kidnapping several British sailors. It makes much more sense that this was a deliberate maneuver on the British part to try and provoke Iran into doing something, which they did.

It's pretty fucking pathetic, that our governments are willing to use their own servicemen as bait, simply to score "points" against Iran.

[etherealtruth]

1. Neither ...

One of them is correct of course (but that's just a matter of chance) ... I would need to see some satellite imagery (any independent form of proof) in order to come to a conclusion.

[Captain Hilts]

2. Iran's and Iraq's view of where the border is has always been cloudy. A war didn't settle it. nt

[lazer47]

3. Hold your Judgment

at least until they have been released and we know the whole story.

[Fridays Child]

7. Assuming that they won't be "debriefed" to Bush and Blair's advantage.

[Skinner]

4. Um, obviously the governments of Britian and the US have lied plenty.

But let's not get all lovey-dovey with Iran here, people. I fail to understand why their government would deserve the benefit of the doubt either.

To be honest, I fail to understand much of what passes for discussion with regard to Iran around here.

[BushOut06]

9. You have to look at each side's motive

The US and Britain have been itching for war with Iran for awhile now. Iran really has no desire for a major conflict with the West. They seem content with minding their own business, maybe interfering with the Palestinian situation, but that's about it.

Again, why would Iran seize these sailors if they didn't believe they were in Iranian territory? Seems like it would be a foolish escalation on their part. The US and Britain have been known to engage in provocative military maneuvers in the past.

[cali]

16. Why seize the soldiers period?

Why not just give them a warning and send them on their way? Or hold them for a couple of hours and then send them off? Of course it was a provocative action by Iran. And there are several reasons as to why they might take such action: They know this is extremely unlikely to provoke any action against them, and they have threatened kidnappings in response to the possible kidnappings of senior Iranians in Turkey and the detention of others in Iraq.

Not saying the brits weren't either deliberately or accidentally in Iranian waters, just pointing out that the Iranian response doesn't show good will either.

[Skinner]

18. Playing devil's advocate here.

You are correct that Iran has no desire for major conflict with the West. But it would seem that Ahmadinejad does in fact have much to gain from minor conflict with the West. His profile and prestige in the region and the world have been greatly increased precisely because he is in constant conflict with the West.

Furthermore, he knows that major conflict with the West has been made virtually impossible because we are bogged down in Iraq. No doubt, some sort of "surgical strike" or whatever we call it these days could well happen, and Iran would not like it. But I suspect that one likely outcome of such an event is that Ahmadinejad would become more popular, not less. (And Bush would probably become more popular too. Humans are strange.)

My point being that the escalation may not be so foolish after all. As long as a major conflict is avoided, then Iran can gain quite a bit from conflict with the West.

[cali]

10. I think that can be explained by

the not wholly unjustified fear people have that the U.S. will initiate a strike against Iran, and the anger people feel towards the current administration. People seem to feel that if they criticize Iran for anything at all, they're aligning themselves with the administration. I disagree with that formulation, and do, on occasion, post articles that are not flattering to Iran. The angry responses are entirely predictable.

[Buzz Clik]

14. Good post. Along the lines of Skinner's intent, no doubt.

There are, after all, two sides to every argument.

[Buzz Clik]

12. Well....

let's not forget that until GWB assumed the reins in 2001, Iran was moving steadily toward fairly reasonable relations with the West. Suddenly, they're put in the Axis of Evil, and they're all pissed off again. Every knuckledragger in this country has been bitching from day one that Iraq should never have been the focus of our pre-emptive aggression -- it should have been Iran. Now, despite the clear futility of any hostile actions we might ever hope to initiate, BushCo is clearly headed toward some sort of violent collision with Iran.

No doubt, Ahmadinejad is a huge part of the problem and is constantly pouring gasoline on the fire. But, dammit! Why did we have to start the fire?

[Dhalgren]

15. I think that any "perceived" pro-Iranian sentiments around here is simply an

attempt to "balance" the shrill "must not take war off the table" talk that is coming from all sides. The fact that Iran may not be what any of us would think of as a "great country to live in", is not the same as saying they should be under the threat of constant war. Don't mistake the absence of bellicosity with the presence of ardent support. As far as who to believe in this particular instance, I recall several British soldiers being capture in southern Iraq, dressed as Arabs with a carload of explosives. No one ever really followed up on that and it pretty much went down the memory hole, but some of us remember it.

Is Iran the most trustworthy nation on Earth? No, by no means. But are they less trustworthy than the US and Britain? Well, that can easily be debated...

[cali]

5. Neither.

And an admission under duress is hardly credible. Add to that the fact that the border between Iraq and Iran in those waters has changed multiple times in the past decade, and who knows?

[Dhalgren]

19. Wait! According to the US Government, admissions "under duress"

are completely credible. The US (and at least by proxy, their ally, Britain) have been for some time now capturing and detaining Iranian citizens for dubious reasons, at best. This is an activity in which both side are now engaged. This would be an excellent time for both sides to step back and say, "Enough! Let's talk!" But, of course, Iran is all evil and we (including Britain) are all good, so that is not likely to happen. I think that every country, right now, that is in contact with the US, either as an ally or an opponent, cannot have any idea how to deal with us - because we are behaving irrationally and as if brain-damaged. Everything is dangerous...

[cali]

20. Yeah, like I ever bought the bullshit from the

administration about that. And no one said anything about Iran being all evil and the US and Britain being all good. I reject black and white and reactive thinking.

[Dhalgren]

21. Thank you! And that is why, sometimes, Iran is in the right

(or at least not completely wrong). If we try an approach the over-arching conflict, here, from as neutral a position as possible, we will, inevitably, be accused of "siding with Iran" or "the terrorists" or "whomever". And that is the problem with looking at a report like the one, here. If you try and look at the possibilities, they mostly do not favor the "Coalition of the Willing" (if that even exists anymore), so as one works his/her way through this story/event, there is the "risk" of appearing to be pro-Iranian, when, in fact, one is simply pro-common sense or pro-historical probability...

[Warren Stupidity]

6. The boundaries are in dispute, neither one of them lying.

The Brits are most likely using the Iraqi territorial claims while the Iranians are using the Iranian territorial claims. On the other hand had the British ships kept to what is clearly Iraqi territory this would not have happened. Instead, my guess is that as usual we (and I include the subservient toady British forces in 'we') do not give a rat's ass about anyone else's sovereignty and feel free to push our forces around wherever we see fit.

[Buzz Clik]

8. This is an old, old game. Iran swallowed the hook.

Back in the day when we were "punishing" Iran, we set up the no-fly zones for them. We also set up corridors where it was illegal for them to fix radar on aircraft. We would fly our aircraft right down the throats of known radar installations daring them to light us up -- of course, sometimes they's do it, and we'd immediately respond with a series of missiles that destroyed the radar.

We pulled the same thing on Libya when Khaddafi set up his "line of death" well into international waters. We had no particular for doing so, but we'd send various crafts across the line and blow the hell out of any Libyan challenges.

Now this with Iran.

Of course, the bad news is that we eventually attacked Libya and Iraq. :mad:

[Bitwit1234]

11. It could have happened

The British might have thought they were in Iraq waters, the Iranians might have thought they were in their waters. People should talk it out and say stuff like that happens. Making an internation incident shows just what bush has done to the area with his war war war.

[JohnyCanuck]

13. How would USAians take

the Iranian navy cruising around the Gulf of Mexico and stopping shipping at will for "inspection" and/or sending boarding parties into disputed waters which the American government claimed as their own.


Brits in the Gulf: Playing with Fire
by Barry Lando

The seizure of 15 British naval troops in the Persian Gulf by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy has Washington hawks all aflutter. Anything these days could be a pretext to launch their much sought after attack on Iran. The Ahmadinejad government may also be eager to bolster its own internal political position by keeping tensions ratcheted up with the U.S. and Britain.

But let’s look at this incident as many Iranians probably view it.

First of all, though the British steadfastly maintain they were in Iraqi waters at the time, the fact is that sovereignty over the narrow straights nearby where the British were operating has been disputed for centuries. The latest chapter began when Saddam Hussein ripped up a treaty he had signed under duress with the Shah in 1975. According to international legal experts, the issue has still not been settled and the Iranians have frequently acted to maintain their claims.
In June 2004, six British marines and two sailors were similarly seized by Iran They were presented blindfolded on Iranian television and admitted entering Iranian waters illegally, then released unharmed after three days.

Secondly, it’s difficult to blame the Iranians for being suspicious of the British naval presence. Reportedly, for months now George W. Bush has authorized clandestine American military missions into Iran. Those actions range from preparing targeted strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, to carrying out joint operations with opposition groups in Iran—the kind of operations that, if the shoe were on the other foot, George W. Bush would brand as “cowardly acts of terrorism.”

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/6307

[scarletwoman]

22. No, no, no. Don't you understand? It's okay when WE do that stuff.

It's NOT okay when other countries do it. I thought the U.S. Whole Earth Hegemon Constitution made that clear! It's the iron-clad Law of American Exceptionalism!

Anyway, thanks for the smirking chimp article.

sw

[Double T]

17. The British sailors confessed......End of Story.

And in other 'torturing news', the USA was found guilty of..........

[scrinmaster]

23. Yeah,

Iran claims that the soldiers confessed, therefore they must have.

:eyes:

[jwirr]

24. It has happened before and it was the British who crossed over

but they said it was accidental. You see there are no street signs out there.

[KiraBS]

25. I believe the sailors and the Commander that does not

want 15 of his men and women to be killed or hurt.
As the line between Iraqi waters and Iranian waters is very, very fine, it is possible it was not an intentional crossing of that line.
The idea in the UK is that it is possibly related to the UN vote of further sanctions against Iran that is about to happen and is possible that our sailors have been captured as political pawns. If anything happens to these men it will Bush and Blair that will get the blame not our men and women in uniform out there. The concern is that when this happened in 2004, our men were released unhurt but Jack Straw was the Foreign Sec then and had been working on a strong and positive relationship with Iran but that is not longer the case, that relationship has gone. I also know that the Iranian Ambassador is being seriously put under pressure to try and sort this, because it is such a PR nightmare waiting to happen.
I do wander whether it is some ploy to keep our troops in Iraq, by illustrating the danger but that is likely to back fire.. especially if Prince Harry is going to be out there.
I can't see a deliberate provocation by the British government at a time when we about to have a new government, the British public don't take this sort of news well and the media would finish Blair, the feelings are very strong right now.
Our issues with Iran are different to those of the US and I I find it very hard to blame navy men who where caught in such small boats and barely threatening.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2041706,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2041685,00.html

[rockymountaindem]

26. Given the lack of clarity of the border in that area

it is possible that the British thought they were in Iraqi waters while the Iranians believe they were in Iranian waters. As for these "confessions", I don't understand why anybody here would automatically believe the likes of the Iranian government, especially after all the mockery directed at the KSM situation. As Cali noted upthread, even if Iran is 100% correct that the British were in Iranian waters, the capture and holding of British forces and equipment *is* a provocative move by Iran given their other options of impounding the boats but releasing the soldiers or just issuing a warning and calling it a misundersanding. If Iran was really trying to lessen international tension, they would say "accidents happen" and move on. Instead they're holding over a dozen British sailors and marines and are making statements on the situation that sounds like something straight out of Pravda in the old days in an attempt to score points of their own.

Ultimately I'd bet that this is a misunderstanding, as Britain has encountered this problem with Iran before and probably doesn't want to go through it again. Despite the fact that it likely stems from the lack of certainty about where the border actually is, I still think the ball is in Iran's court with regards to their provocative manuvering.