Good Friday - the grim reaper cometh

"British Gunboats in an Area Out of Iraqi Control"
A Bogus Hostage Crisis

By GARY LEUPP

On March 31 the President of the United States made a statement
pertaining
to the 15 British sailors and marines unfortunately detailed in Iran:
"The
Iranians must give back the hostages. They’re innocent. The Iranians
took
these people out of Iraqi waters. It’s inexcusable behavior."

But since the American people don’t trust George W. Bush, let’s seek a
second opinion. A credible authoritative one.

Let’s ask the top Iraqi military officer in charge of guarding the
Shatt
al-Iraq waterway where the Brits were actually apprehended. This man is
working for the U.S.-backed regime and probably not inclined to make up
stuff to embarrass the U.S. president, who gives him his paycheck. So
his
opinion should be relevant here. Let’s ask Brigadier General Hakim
Jassim.

The good general told Associated Press the day after the March 23
incident: "We were informed [about the British troops’ arrests] by
Iraqi
fishermen, after they had returned from sea that there were British
gunboats in an area that is out of Iraqi control. We don’t know why
they
were there.’"

Gen. Jassim---again, working for the Anglo-American occupiers of his
nation---does not sound outraged by the Iranian action. And notice how
the
Iraqi client-state apparatus, which for some time has been telling
Washington, "Don’t drag us into your anti-Iranian projects" is not
calling
the detained Britons "hostages." It has indeed (with much of the world)
protested the illegal U.S. detention of Iranian diplomats in Irbil, in
Iraqi Kurdistan.

(That particular instance of "inexcusable behavior" hasn’t gotten much
press in this country. Nor has the subdued Iranian response to the
provocation.)

Gen. Jassim would agree that the Shatt al-Arab river where the Brits
were
seized has no clearly marked boundary and has been the focus of past
quarrels between Iraq and Iran. (Commodore Peter Lockwood of the Royal
Australian Navy, commanding the Coalition task force in the waterway
last
October, said as much: "No maritime border has been agreed upon by the
countries.") Craig Murray, once head of the British Foreign Office’s
maritime section, writes that Prime Minister Blair "is being fatuous"
in
stating that he is "utterly certain" the British ship was seized within
Iraqi territorial limits. Murray, best known as the former British
Ambassador to Uzbekistan (who exposed British complicity in torture in
that country) writes as follows:

"There is no agreed boundary in the Northern Gulf, either between Iran
and
Iraq or between Iraq and Kuwait. The Iran-Iraq border has been agreed
inside the Shatt al-Arab waterway, because there it is also the land
border. But that agreement does not extend beyond the low tide line of
the
coast.
"Even that very limited agreement is arguably no longer in force. Since
it
was reached in 1975, a war has been fought over it, and ten-year
reviews--- necessary because waters and sandbanks in this region move
about dramatically---have never been carried out."

Gen. Jassim might privately agree that this border issue in any case is
the business of Iraqis and Iranians---rather than British and American
imperialists popping up in the region at no one’s invitation, on false
pretexts, slaughtering people and expecting as they do so that the
conquered locals will say "Thanks, boss!"

Bush is trying to depict the March 23 incident as a "hostage crisis,"
stoking memories of the 1979-81 Iran Embassy episode. (Younger readers
may
need some reminding. After the overthrow of the U.S.-backed and
universally despised Shah of Iran, in the most genuine mass-based
revolutionary upheaval in the history of the modern Islamic world, the
Carter administration allowed the Shah refuge in the U.S. and refused
to
extradite him to Iran to stand trial. This prompted Iranian students to
seize the U.S. embassy and detain its personnel. Those seized were
released as Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as Carter’s successor in
January
1981. The incident unleashed much bigotry, hatred and war fever in this
country, to the delight of those wishing to shock the U.S. public out
of
the "Vietnam Syndrome.")

Just as the seizure of the Americans in 1979 needs to be understood in
perspective, the detention of these Britons has to be understood in the
context of the crime of the Iraq War itself. Whatever the actual
coordinates of the vessel boarded and seized by the Iranians, why are
the
British policing the Shatt al-Arab waterway at all?

They’re there fighting an imperialist war. That war is going badly. The
neocons still in charge in Washington (and building bridges to the
resurgent Democrats led by opportunists competing to convey deference
to
AIPAC and embrace a hard line against Iran) wish to expand it to
include
the Islamic Republic. They work overtime organizing that project. That
much should be obvious to anybody paying attention.

"How about spinning this as a hostage crisis?" some fine neocon
might
have said the other day, around the water cooler in the hallway
outside the Pentagon’s Iran Directorate offices.

"That could mobilize public opinion. Victims in custody on TV,
making
’forced propaganda statements’ in violation of the Geneva Conventions
and stuff like that."

"Yeah that could help. We have the moral high ground and all that.
Good concept."

"Good to have Brits seized. If it were Americans, there’ll be all
these charges that it was contrived, to justify war, yadayada"

"Right, seems nastier if it’s them, not so connected with Bush,
because he’sy’know"

"I know. People won’t link this to him, or to us. They’ll think,
’There they go again, taking British hostages this time.’"

"Nice white people just there doing their job, trying to help us
out,
not trying to provoke anybody."

"Mm hm. So our approach will be: Iran’s killing our troops with the
IEDs"

"Building nuclear weapons"

"in order to exterminate the Jews"

"Yes, Holocaust. Works very well. And Islamist Iran’s collaborating
with Islamist al-Qaeda---"

"..facilitating Taliban escape through Iran, or something like
that."

"Might work. But I’d say, for talking points: IEDs---Iran killing
our
boys; nukes; holocaust plans; support for terrorism---Hamas and
Hizbollah; and this British hostages thing."

"Hostages. Nice to have their faces there on screen. So obviously
in
the enemy’s control."

"Makes you angry. Nice English people in the custody of evil. This
is
beautiful."

"Yeah. Brits making statements, under obvious duress."

"That lady having to wear a headscarf and being told she’d be
freed,
and then she wasn’t."

"It’s torture."

"Torture. Yes. We can use the torture thing I mean, that’s perfect.
Tortured young hostage mother, in Iran, under a Muslim head scarf"

"Islamist headscarf, forced on her by the terrorists. Good concept,
good plan. Let’s see what the VP thinks!"

"Yup, he’s the man."

* * *

This conversation is of course imaginary, But I do believe this is how
the
warmongers reason. The key issue on their minds is: "How can we cause
the
American people to agree (or at least not disagree to the extent that
they
might impede our agenda) to an aggressive campaign to topple the
Iranian
government?" And "How can we get this heroic deed done before our boy
is
out of power or this administration crippled by political scandal?"

Russian intelligence predicting a U.S. strike against Iran April 6.
This
is a nation that has not attacked a neighbor in modern times, has
sought
improved relations with Europe and the U.S. and enjoys good relations
with
Russia, China and Japan.

Iran did not provoke the present situation. It did not ask to be
surrounded by U.S. forces in occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, or in the
Persian Gulf. It did not ask to be included in Bush’s bizarre "Axis of
Evil" concept, a statement of hostility as categorical as diplomatic
discourse allows. But Bush wants regime change in Iran. He wants
revenge
for the overthrow of the U.S.-backed Shah in 1979. One should see the
British "hostage" situation, and interpret Bush’s rhetoric about guilt
and
innocence in that light.

* * *

April 6, by the way, is Good Friday, the day Christians believe Jesus
died
on the cross for the sins of the world. Muslims disagree. Jesus (Isa),
according to the Qur’an (4:157) was not killed. Rather, the Jews
crucified
somebody else, with his "likeness," in his place and then lied about it
while God raised Jesus up directly into Heaven. Two different versions
of
the tale of Jesus’ unusual departure from this world, equally
implausible
from my point of view but embraced by half of humankind. Beautiful
harmless comforting myths perhaps. But among their believers a minority
believes with absolute conviction, and these can be dangerous,
especially
if they wield political and military power and think that the God who
sent
Jesus wants them to smite his enemies.

Especially if they think that a great war centering around Jerusalem
(foretold in the Book of Revelation) must precede the Second Coming of
Christ.

Especially if they believe that, as that New Testament book indicates,
"kings of the East" (Revelation 16:12) will attack the Euphrates region
(modern Iraq) before the apocalyptic battles take place in Armageddon
and
Jerusalem.

Iran borders Iraq to the east. Military leaders predict that any U.S.
or
Israeli attack on Iran will produce Iranian action against the U.S. in
Iraq’s Shiite south.

There are religious fundamentalists in Iran to be sure, fanatics who
can
be dangerous. But again: Iran has not attacked another country in its
modern history. Meanwhile there are religious nuts at the highest
levels
of power in Washington, capital of a country which, as the (devout
Christian) Rev. Martin Luther King once put it, is "the greatest
purveyor
of violence in the world today."

I will not prophesy that the evil, dangerous persons (including
fundamentalist Christians and secular Jewish neocons) responsible for
the
war on Iraq will purvey a Good Friday assault on Iran. But I won’t be
surprised if it happens, with apocalyptic ramifications. Perhaps only
in
the aftermath will redeeming regime change come here.

Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct
Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author of Servants,
Shophands
and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The
Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial
Intimacy
in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a
contributor to CounterPunch’s merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq,
Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.

He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu