More shadow play in Persian Gulf
Posted by seumasach on January 9, 2012
8th January, 2012
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s visit to Iran doesn’t appear to have gone well. The rhetoric is all Turkey’s — and in a subtle way, Iranian official media have been gently mocking at it. The fact is, Turkey cannot afford such poor relations with almost all its neighbours — Iran, Syria, Iraq, Armenia, Cyprus, Israel. With France and EU, too, things are rocky.
But Tehran takes a dim view of Turkey’s covert subversion of Syria and its interference in Iraq, as well as its axis with Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Most important, Turkey is allowing the US’s ABM system to be deployed on its soil, whose main purpose is to monitor Iran’s missile capability against Israel.
Thus, Davutoglu’s revelation of a Turkish mediatory role in the Iran nuclear issue is, let us say, a lot of hot air. Iranian FM Ali Akbar Salehi used his Persian tact to respond with his ‘personal opinion’ that Iran has no problem with Istanbul as a venue of talks.
The negotiations over the nuclear issue are going to be tough, especially under the shadow of the EU’s impending ban on purchase of Iran’s oil. Iran will be wary of the west using the talks for propagnada purpose. Trita Parsi, who knows the subject exceedingly well from the inside track (and advises the US government), has an insightful article in the Independent on the US and western countries’ doublespeak.
Similarly, Iran will be hugely wary of the western propaganda about the US Navy rescuing the Iranian sailors from Somali pirates. The Iranian media downplayed the event, while the western media played it up. Iran is far too experienced with the booby traps on the propaganda front. The US-Israeli propaganda will strive to cast Iran as unreasonable in the face of west’s ‘friendly’ acts.
Attention now turns to President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s 5-nation tour of Latin America in a blaze of publicity. It is a diplomatic scoop for Iran insofar as it displays Iran is far from isolated even in the US’s own backyard. The statements by Ahmedinejad will be closely followed as he wings his way through Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Cuba and appears as the guest of honour at the swearing in ceremony of Guatemala’s newly-elected leftist president.
It is a loss of face for Obama who began his presidency with a bang in Latin America. Meanwhile, Tehran is taking precautions over the US-Israeli war plans. What matters most fro Tehran will be the actual actions on the ground. The British deployment, for instance, will be taken with utmost seriousness, given London’s track record of identifying with the hawkish Israeli lobby’s opinion in Washington and Britain’s itch to settle scores with Iran at some point following the recent rupture in diplomatic ties.
Iran isn’t lowering its guard. An IRGC exercise began in the eastern region bordering Afghanistan. The message is rather straightforward — ‘over 100000 US troops are deployed like sitting ducks in their Afghan bases who may become victims of any US-Israeli attack on Iran’. Again, on Saturday, Iran announced its intention to have another big naval exercise in the Strait of Hormuz.
Clearly, if the US-Israeli strategy has been to browbeat Iran, it isn’t working. On Saturday, Iran announced that it is dumping American dollar and will have trade in future with Russia in their national currencies. Iran also is warming up to the Russian proposal on the nuclear issue. Clearly, when the unity of the 5+1 gets eroded, advantage goes to Iran.
Russia has created diplomatic space for Iran to negotiate via its flexible proposal, which virtually undercuts the ’sanctions route’ that has been pursued in the UN Security Council so far. Russia has begun demanding a rollback of the UN sanctions on Iran.
This is already reflected in the confident fashion in which Tehran is dealing with the team of IAEA inspectors who are visiting Iran at the moment. Iran suo moto displayedits indigenous capabilities on a front where according to Parsi’s account, it was prepared to compromise with the US within the framework of the Brazil-Turkey-Iran swap formula. Tehran has promised to announce some more “good news” of nuclear capability in the “coming weeks.”
Again, the Kremlin’s account of the telephone conversation between President Dmitry Medvedev and Ahmedinejad underscores an appreciable level of understanding on a range of regional issues. The Russian media reports estimate the western pressure on Syria and Iran as inter-related, forming part of a strategy to dominate the Middle East, which would impact on Russian interests. Interestingly, Russia is making further naval deployments in Syria signalling support to President Bashar al-Assad.
In These New Times 
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