Don’t Bomb Iran

There is no agreed sea border where Iran seized 15 British sailors, according to a British diplomat who has experience in such negotiations, calling the British map of the area ‘fake’ - although most Western media have accepted it. “No maritime border has been agreed upon by the two countries,” said Australian Navy Commodore Peter Lockwood, Commander of the Combined Task Force in the Northern Persian Gulf in 2006. Craig Murray, ex-UK ambassador, says that in the disputed offshore borders, both the UK and Iranian claims have equal validity and - to defuse the confrontation - both should recognise they each acted in good faith in a confused area. The UK’s GPS position shows the incident was closer to Iran than to Iraq, aparently

Craig Murray, ex-ambassador, says on his blog

Fake Maritime Boundaries

The British Government has published a map showing the coordinates of the incident, well within an Iran/Iraq maritime border. The mainstream media and even the blogosphere has bought this hook, line and sinker. But there are two colossal problems.

A) The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary shown on the British government map does not exist. It has been drawn up by the British Government. Only Iraq and Iran can agree their bilateral boundary, and they never have done this in the Gulf, only inside the Shatt because there it is the land border too. This published boundary is a fake with no legal force.

B) Accepting the British coordinates for the position of both HMS Cornwall and the incident, both were closer to Iranian land than Iraqi land. Go on, print out the map and measure it. Which underlines the point that the British produced border is not a reliable one.

None of which changes the fact that the Iranians, having made their point, should have handed back the captives immediately. I pray they do so before this thing spirals out of control. But by producing a fake map of the Iran/Iraq boundary, notably unfavourable to Iran, we can only harden the Iranian position.

For more detail and a broader discussion, see Justin Raimono’ piece here

There is also a disputed sea border with Kuwait, and plans to drill for oil in that area are also a source of friction which could be a causus belli, incident leading to war (ref needed)