John Chuckman

COMMENT TO A REPORT THAT THE BRITISH NAVY IS RUSHING A NUCLEAR SUBMARINE TO THE PERSIAN GULF AMID GROWING TENSIONS WITH IRAN

This is a very stupid step taken by Britain, sending a nuclear attack submarine to the Gulf. It adds only risk and uncertainty to a dangerous situation, one for which Britain has herself to blame.

Britain’s act of hijacking an Iranian tanker near Spain earlier served no legitimate purpose and represented lawlessness trying to pass for law enforcement.

According to solid information, that act was undertaken at the request of the United States. Nothing like committing piracy at the request of a friend, now, is there? High principles indeed, but such are the times in which we live.

And such a friend! One who ripped up a valid working legal contract – the Iranian international nuclear agreement – which involved the direct interests of seven other nations as signatories, all of whom were just swept aside as though they didn’t matter.

That act of vandalism was followed by the laying on of harsh economic sanctions, pretty much undeclared and illegal acts of war intended to cripple a major economy and hurt its tens of millions of people.

Then we have whole fleets of warships and bombers sent to a place where there is no war, their sole purpose being to intimidate. And during all these hostile acts, we have a series of truly vicious threats coming from a President who freely uses words like “obliterate.”

Well, the British pirating of an Iranian tanker near Spain was yet another log tossed on the flames. Yet when we hear the British government talk about the situation, it’s the Iranians who act badly.

Of course, this all suggests the possibility that the United States may be seeking to provoke Iran into doing something that could be used as a casus belli.

One desperately hopes not. Our Western news sources and politicians continue to minimize the seriousness of starting a war with Iran. Apart from the very real moral and ethical considerations of starting a war against law-abiding people just because you are prejudiced against them, it would be very wise to remember this is no push-over country, as are so many of those the United States chooses to bully and threaten and overthrow. And it has important and powerful friends in Russia and China.

This is a country with a population about the size of Germany’s, a country which has experienced something unlike anything the United States has experienced. It was battle-hardened in a vicious, eight year-long war during the 1980s.

The bloodiness of that war was comparable to parts of WWII in Europe, but the Iranians endured. That was a war the United States secretly encouraged. It even assisted Saddam’s Iraq with intelligence and war materiel.

Saddam used chemical weapons extensively, on an immensely greater scale than the inaccurate claims made about Syria recently, weapons the United States and its allies saw to it that he receive.  They wanted Iran bled.

Because of the awful experience of the Iran-Iraq War and the open and unceasing hostility of the United States for decades, Iran has prepared itself militarily, creating many formidable conventional weapons, including a whole range of missiles.

It has anti-ship missiles lining parts of its shores, and what prize targets a couple of aircraft carriers would make.

We saw the effectiveness of Iran’s anti-aircraft missiles with the downing of America’s largest and most sophisticated drone, a thing the size of an airliner, packed with electronic gear, flying high at night with signals turned off.

We saw the accuracy of Iran’s ground-to-ground missiles a while back when they hit some terrorist mercenaries in Iraq without touching nearby American forces.

What utter insanity it would be to start a war. I feel confident that if it were only up to Iran, there could be no war. It has started no hostilities in its entire modern history, despite being threatened many times and openly attacked more than once. It completely met its obligations under the international nuclear agreement Trump wantonly tore-up.

But it is not just Iran involved, represented as it is by impressive and highly rational figures such as President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif, it is the likes of Bolton and Pompeo and Haspel and Trump and Netanyahu who are involved – violence-prone and dishonest people every one of them.

Elements of the British government, at the time of the piracy near Spain were enmeshed in a political battle for the succession to Theresa May as Prime Minister, and some may have considered it a good show to put on for influencing Conservative Party opinion.

Belligerence is always big in such circles. Just look at Trump. Belligerence is the only act he has in his repertoire.

I don’t blame the Iranians in the least for the actions they’ve taken. They were all in response to things done first to them, and they were all measured and proportionate.

Indeed, in every step responding to American threats, the Iranians have shown admirable restraint. They do just enough to make the United States, and now Britain, understand that they cannot act arbitrarily without consequences.

And doing a tit-for-tat by capturing the British oil tanker in the Strait, an action involving no harm or violence, was about as reasonable as can be expected when someone is dealing with unreasonable people, people who claim higher authority and legitimacy for their acts on no basis whatsoever.

The only thing needed to restore peace in the Gulf is for the United States to withdraw its threatening forces and let the local people go on about their business.

Then, if it really wants to talk to Iran, as it claims it does, it might restore the solemn contract it destroyed, so that Iran feels it comes to the table as an equal national state, not as Czechoslovakia being terrorized by the Third Reich in the Munich Crisis of 1938.

That might just restore some credibility to the United States, too. I don’t know how anyone expects to reach any future agreements with anyone after proving its past word was worthless.

Iran’s Rouhani has hinted at a possible swap of the seized tankers. That sure makes a lot more sense to me than sending a nuclear attack submarine. It points towards where reason is to be found in these matters.