Posted on 03/25/2007 5:17:55 AM PDT by Dog
THE official notification, delivered in secure calls yesterday morning to senior Whitehall figures, was the latest dramatic behind-the-scenes move to get to grips with a crisis that is now engulfing the government.
After a day of shadow-boxing with a notoriously slippery regime, Tony Blair is set to up the ante: the plight of the Shatt al-Arab 15 is officially a crisis and he will need the Cobra team to handle it.
The clutch of VIPs will gather in an operations room several floors below Downing Street as early as this afternoon to plot an escape from a military spat that now threatens to become an international incident.
The decision came just 24 hours after the crew of HMS Cornwall had been caught in the confusion of direct confrontation with Iranian vessels in the searing heat of the Gulf.
As the crew members were surrounded in their two rubber dinghies, the Cornwall's commander, Commodore Nick Lambert, frantically radioed back to his own top brass for instructions.
The response to the inquiry, which had been immediately patched through to Ministry of Defence headquarters in Whitehall, was to hold fire.
The order to show restraint has been observed throughout the forces and the British government in the 48 hours since, but it is unclear how long both sides will be able to maintain control.
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett's first response to the gathering crisis on Friday was to keep to diplomatic conventions. After a hurried phone call to Blair, she immediately summoned Iran's ambassador, Rasoul Movahedian, to her office to explain their behaviour.
After a meeting described by officials as "brisk but polite", Beckett emerged to stress that she was "extremely disturbed" by events.
It was an understated description of the deep concern now gripping the government. Not only was Blair's administration alarmed at the risk to the 15 military personnel, which included at least one woman, but it was in no doubt over Tehran's ability to use their plight to make a wider point.
During a flurry of diplomatic activity in the hours after the snatch, the Iranians' rhetoric repeatedly elevated their action, and the alleged motives of the British, to a multinational affair. It was the eve of a second UN Security Council resolution imposing sanctions over Iran's refusal to halt its programme to enrich uranium. The Shatt al-Arab 15 were, from the start, pawns in a perilous international game.
"It looks like too much of a coincidence," a senior Foreign Office insider confirmed.
The response was a no- nonsense demand for Iran to relent - and Britain freely used the international community to back up its case. Beckett dispatched the UK chargé d'affaires, Kate Smith, to confront the government in Tehran, armed with the insistence that the British sailors had been in Iraqi waters.
In the meantime, Blair made a personal call to European allies, including EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, to secure a public denunciation of the Iranians' actions.
"It was impressed on everyone how important it was to raise the diplomatic temperature, rather than keep a low profile and let them make a song and dance of the situation," one defence official said.
"There is nothing to be gained in provoking a confrontation, because that would be playing into their hands. But neither should we let them have it all their way. We tried that before and we're still trying to get our kit back."
The smaller-scale precedent, the taking of six British marines and two sailors on the same waterway in June 2004, was a painful lesson. The personnel were only returned after they had been paraded blindfold on Iranian television and admitted entering Iranian waters illegally. Three years on, the government is still pressing Iran for the return of its boats and kit, including valuable radar equipment.
The degree of concern felt across Whitehall was demonstrated yesterday, when Movahedian was called back to the Foreign Office, this time to see Beckett's minister, Lord Triesman. The British were clearly attempting to warn off Tehran before it could begin to use the servicemen and women as a significant propaganda tool.
It was, however, a race against time - and through it all, the diplomats and the politicians were acutely aware that Tehran has built a foreign policy on disregarding diplomatic niceties.
Top level COBRA is an acronym for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, where its meetings are held.
Tony Blair, senior ministers, police and security chiefs all take part. It is called after events such as 9/11, 7/7
and can evoke emergency powers such as suspending Parliament or restricting movement.
That's truly incredible. However, I did see some comment here in the US yesterday (in some lefty press source, although it was in passing and I don't recall where) that this was all a "set up" by the US to "provoke" Iran into doing something rash and then we would have an excuse to attack them. These people are delusional.
First of all, it was obvious that this whole thing was planned in advance - the Revolutionary Guards don't act on their own. Ahmadinejad wanted an excuse to get out of coming to the US, and he also probably has some other objective, which I think may be just a propaganda win and looking big in the eyes of the ME. But of course the delusional left has now adopted Iran as their favorite misunderstood nation poster child.
yup
Well said, TET1968. Long, long, long overdue.
The wreckage of the Revolutionary Guard ships would have been the best way to determine location.
What an insulting and incorrect comment.
The PYTHON team, of course ;)
Put
Your
Tommy
Helmets
On
Now
I suspect that they had been given strict instructions not to fire on Iranians without contacting HQ first.
It really is a shame
This is a big international incident, but it won't lead to war.
Nobody wants another war and whatever is required to avoid it, even capitulation, will occur.
Either that or Iran will eventually back down.
Also, past events like the 2004 kidnapping show that convening Cobra teams here really doesn't mean squat.
Blair won't do anything.
If we start sinking Iranian naval vessels; how soon before Iran starts sinking western oil tankers? An aggressive response from the Brits and US would have to be so overwhelming that it removes all Iranian threats from the theater.
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You're sadly probably right. Too bad the HMS Cornwall couldn't had just moved into those waters and got between the Iranians and the dinghies. Then again, I don't know how far off they were.
Still, the time to react was then, and is now gone, no?
The error was allowing them to be surrounded.
All of this nonsense, all of this BS could've been avoided had the CO of the HMS Cornball simply been a Man and opened fire.
Tedious.
No it didn't. British are looking for (1) a diplomatic solution, (2) no confrontation, and (3) help from the EU. In other words, they've already backed down to Iran. In fact, they did so when they refused to let the Cornwall engage the enemy.
Predators do not attack strong, healthy prey. They only attack weak, vulnerable prey.
Amen. If we do not start standing up to these threats and little "incidents" the big one will come as it did on 9/11/01. I, for one, do NOT want that to happen. The whole reason we started this in Afghanistan and Iraq was to take the fight TO the Terrorists, of which Iran and it's "government" is the chief "facilitator" at this juncture.
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