Category: Gulf

Ever since 1970, when the British withdrew the sizable forces they had
maintained
“East of Suez”, with the primary mission of guaranteeing the security of
the
Gulf and of its all-important oil pipelines and shipping lanes, the ”
security”
of these routes and facilities (from a western perspective) has been guaranteed through the
maintenance
of a delicate balance between the three legs of the Gulf’s security ”
stool”.
One leg–until recently–was the multi-faceted US defense relationship with Saudi Arabia.

The other two legs were (from the US point of view, still) much more problematic than the relationship with saudi Arabia, and
in need of frequent re-balancing. These were Iran’s significant strategic
“reach” over the Gulf area — heavily pro-Washington until the Shah fell
in
1978; then judged to be distinctly anti-Washington– and Iraq’s somewhat
more
meager strategic reach over the area.

(Iraq is intrinsically less
strategically
hefty than Iran– which was why Saddam was such an arrogant fool to think
he could ever win the war of choice he launched against Iran in 1980.
Plus,
Iraq has almost no direct seafront footage along the Gulf, while Iran has
hundreds and hundreds of miles of it– all the way down till it meets
Pakistan
down there in the Arabian Sea someplace.)

In all those eight years of terrible carnage that were the Iran-Iraq War
(a.k.a. the Very First Gulf War of the modern era), Washington enacted
its
“balancing role” mainly by giving discreet help to whichever side was the
momentary underdog, with the presumed aim of keeping the war going for
as long as possible.

Continue reading “Geopolitics of the Gulf 201”

US deputy Secretary of State Rich (“Muscle-man”) Armitage has been telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the administration is now prepared to talk to Iran about matters of common interest, and no longer seeks “regime change” in Teheran.
According to a report on Radio Free Europe, Armitage “told the committee that Washington shares a number of pressing interests with Iran, including the country’s role in Afghanistan and Iraq and its battle with drug smuggling. He said these issues could warrant resuming limited discussions with Iran but not a ‘broad dialogue with the aim of normalizing relations,’ which were broken off after Tehran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution… ”
According to a story in the NYT today, Armitage told the SFRC that,

on the positive side, Iran had supported the American-led ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the formation of the Iraqi Governing Council, whose members were chosen by the American occupation authorities.
Iran also surprised some American officials by showing up last week at the Madrid conference of international donors to Iraq and contributing aid.
The Governing Council is discussing a deal to ship oil to Iran and receive electricity in return, one administration official said, a step that L. Paul Bremer III, the occupation administrator, has not yet sought to block.
Mr. Armitage was asked Tuesday by Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, if “regime change” was American policy in Iran. “No, sir,” Mr. Armitage replied, adding that “our policy is to try to eliminate the ability of Iran to carry forward with disruptive policies.”

This news about the Bushies’ new realism on Iran comes in the wake of last week’s small diplomatic breakthrough by heart-throb Dominique de Villepin and his Euro colleagues, in reaching Iran’s agreement to go along with the EU’s demands on nuclear inspections.
It is also long overdue for the administration to start treating Teheran with more nuance than just being a member of the so-called “axis of evil”. After all, if Americans want a hope in heck of ever getting our 130,000 forces out of Iraq without suffering major, major casualties then cooperation with Iran will have to be a part of that exit strategy.
Uncomfortable thought for some in DC and in the generally anti-Iranian US media? Undoubtedly. But they’re going to have to deal with that.
I mean, did anyone in this administration even bother to look at a map of the Gulf region before they cavalierly sent so many US troops so deep into Iraq?
If they had, they might just have happened to notice a couple of things:
(1) Much of Iraq is desert. But there’s a band of heavily populated areas that runs fairly close to the country’s eastern border.
(2) The other side of that eastern border lies Iran, a huge, well-infrastructured country of roughly 65-70 million people.
(3) Many roads link the two countries. Their people share many attributes (and in some cases come from the same families.)

Continue reading “Iran: not quite so “evil”?”

GEOPOLITICS OF THE GULF 101: Why are so many Iranians inside and outside the regime taking evident satisfaction at the imbroglio to their west? Had it occurred to anyone in the present US administration that maybe, just maybe, there’s a history there?
Here’s some of what AP is reporting out of Teheran today:
“Hundreds of thousands of Iranians demonstrated, denouncing both ‘Bush’s barbarism’ and ‘Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship’… Demonstrators pelted the British Embassy in Tehran with stones, breaking windows and shouting for the embassy to be closed… The cleric who delivered the Friday sermon that was broadcast on Iranian television, Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, said: ‘Will bombs and the use of force bring democracy and freedom? It definitely will not.’ The worshippers responded with shouts of ‘Death to America!’ and ‘Death to Britain!”
So okay, imagine you’re an Iranian. Back in 1978 you had probably, like most Iranians, supported the revolution against the dictatorship of the Shah, though maybe you’d have shared some of the many common reservations about the Islamic theocracy that filled its place. Still, after the excesses and idiocies of the Shah’s era, you were probably willing to give the revolutionaries a chance.
Then in September 1980, there was a vicious military assault against your country. Saddam Hussein, your militantly secular, Arab-nationalist neighbor to the west sent a nasty expeditionary force into your country– with the aim of sparking local anti-regime uprisings and bringing down your government.

Continue reading “GEOPOLITICS OF THE GULF 101: “

THE BRITS SHOULD KNOW BETTER:  The strategic geography of Mesopotamia may seem distant, perplexing, and “exotic” to many in the United States. But, with all due respect to the British military, they should have known better than to let the Bushites take them along for the promised “cakewalk” into Iraq.

The Brits should have known better.  Actually, many Brits do.  Many Brits learned in their (our) history books about the problems encountered by the expeditionary force sent into Mesopotamia by the authorities in British-ruled India.

Those who weren’t “lucky” enough to read those books can find out all about it on a good-looking site called First WorldWar.com (ironic subhead– “The war to end all wars”.)  The site even has a special section on the “Mesopotamian front” that lets you click down all the major engagement from the capture of Basra in November 1914 through the capture of Tikrit three years later, and finally, the Battle of Sharqat in October-November 1918.

Basra took the Anglo-Indian force 16days to capture from the Turks.  We learn that,  “In the face of distinctly unfavourable attacking conditions – heavy rainfall and its consequent mud bath, in addition to heat mirages – the British force found progress initially difficult to come by until the use of 18-pounder artillery succeeded in scattering defenders, most of whom escaped under protection of a heat mirage, unable to be pursued by cavalry in such thick mud.

But finally the Brits made it into the city:

In taking Basra the British-led force suffered under 500 casualties and the Turks in excess of 1,000.  Crucially the British had secured and ensured a continuation of oil supplies in the Middle East: a matter of paramount importance.

[Oil supplies were a factor because of the huge refineries in the “Persian” city of Abadan, just across the Shatt al-Arab from Basra.]

After that, slowly–very slowly– the British-Indian force plodded northward.  The battle reports covering the next 18 months speak repeatedly of problems with supply lines, terrible physical conditions, confusion about the loyalties of various tribes, etc etc.  Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose, eh?

Then, in April 1916, came the First Battle of Kut al-Amara. By now, the Brits, who’d been trying to pursue an aggressive strategy of “forward defense” found their garrison of 10,000 troops in that eastern-Mesopotamian city besieged.  They brought up a 30,000-man force to try to relieve it, but in a series of engagements the Turks inflicted heavy losses. “1,200 British casualties were incurred alone on 6 April, with additional losses suffered the next day and on 9 April.”

By April 22, the losses among the relieving force had reached 23,000.

“Accordingly Sir Charles Townshend [the British commander of the Kut garrison ~HC], having consulted with higher authority, surrendered unconditionally on 29 April 1916 having failed to purchase parole for his 10,000 men with a