“Tehran on Monday warned Arab states in the Gulf that things could become “very complicated” if they do not act cautiously over a simmering islands dispute between Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi made the declaration to Iran’s ISNA news agency on the eve of talks in Doha between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states over three tiny islands in the Gulf and claimed by both Iran and the UAE. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad infuriated the UAE by visiting one of them, Abu Musa, on April 11 and asserting in a speech that historical records proved “the Persian Gulf is Persian,” as state media called his trip a purely “domestic issue.”…………”

“Sheikh Abdullah said the islands were in a “pivotal area”, crucial to the passage of oil. The UAE wants to find a solution to the conflict, but Iran’s behaviour “might bring serious complications and implications”, he said. “We have to have a clear agenda, a deadline for these negotiations.” If necessary the parties should seek international arbitration or go to the International Court of Justice, Sheikh Abdullah said. “But we cannot keep this matter going on for ever.” The Foreign Minister added: “It is with regret that a Muslim and neighbour country with civilisation and traditions behaves in such a manner. It is supposed to behave rationally, not to project its internal concerns abroad. In this case the consequences can be dangerous.”………”

I had thought there was an old agreement between Iran and one of the Emirates (Sharjah), allegedly brokered by Britain which had controlled the island, to share the oil and gas around Abu Moussa. I need to research this, but I thought there was some agreement regulating supervision as well (I can be wrong, but I doubt it).
 
More Seriously: There are rumors swirling around me that Abu Dhabi wants to lease at least one of the islands to a foreign power as a military naval base. The rumors have it that since the Canadians pulled out of their base, the UAE has had major foreign bases for only the United States, Britain, and France. In addition to some possible facilities to smaller powers like Bosnia and Monaco and the Maldives. Apparently the rulers of Abu Dhabi feel that they need more foreign bases (on the assumption that “the more the merrier“). The rumor says they wish to release an island to the Sultan of Bruni to use as a naval base to protect the Strait of Hormuz from Iranian incursions. The idea is that Western bases and Bruni bases will protect the Gulf from such ‘external’ threats as Iran poses. Bruni-ian and Western soldiers are known to be always eager to defend their national territorial waters in the Persian-American Gulf against outside incursions from faraway foreign places like Iran.
Another rumor, quickly discounted by yours truly, is that the potentates plan to settle their new foreign mercenary brigade formed by Blackwater executives from among Colombians gang veterans, disgruntled white South Africans, rare teetotaler Australians, Mexican drug cartel graduates, and other such Arab nationalists.
The Iranians, remembering Iraq in 2003, may worry that the mercenaries and/or Bruni forces will use the island as a base for launching an invasion of their country with the intention of liberating it. Stay tuned.
I still don’t know wtf Ahmadinejad was doing visiting that island at this time. It is not like he is running for office again; he can’t. Maybe he knows.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

“The primary issue is mistrust. American and Western politicians continuously reiterate their mistrust of Tehran but seem not to understand that this mistrust is mutual. Iran has profound reasons to distrust the West. The United States and the Britain orchestrated the 1953 coup that removed Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, and installed a dictator, supporting him for a quarter century. Following the Iranian revolution, the West unilaterally withdrew from its contractual commitments and left Iran with billions of dollars of unfinished industrial and nuclear projects. In 1980, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, sparking an economically ruinous eight-year war in which Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran, and 300,000 Iranians lost their lives. The United States and the West supported the aggressor in that conflict. In 1988, the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian jetliner, killing 290 innocent civilians, including 66 children…………. During Mohammad Khatami’s presidency, Iran was among the first countries to condemn the 9/11 terrorists attacks and cooperate with the United States in the “war on terror,” leading to the removal of the Taliban and al Qaeda from Afghanistan in 2001. In return, the United States rewarded Iran by designating it a member of the “axis of evil.”………….”

He is right, of course. This litany of Iranian grievances against the West is long, and likely will get longer before it is over (WTF it is that will be over). It is much longer than any grievances the US government can present against the Iranians, in terms of life, fortune, and national humiliation.
That was an odd behavior after September 11 in 2001. A bunch of Saudi and other Salafi terrorists, funded by Saudi princes and Salafi Wahhabi sympathizers around the Gulf, attacked the United States, the Iranians showed sympathy for the United States and cooperated with the US in Afghanistan against the Taliban and their al-Qaeda terrorist guests. So the Bush administration quickly returns the favor by labeling Iran part of this “axis of evil” and moves closer to the Saudi princes. That odd policy must have been engineered by that old foreign policy guru of the Bushes, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan al-Saud.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]