by Captain Paul Watson

Great Britain is now all indignantly self-righteous and acting shocked and surprised about Iran seizing a British oil tanker.

What did they expect?

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif characterized the seizure of an Iranian super tanker July 4 as “piracy.”
Former Revolutionary Guard commander, Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezai, wrote that Iran was not seeking conflict, “but we are not going to come up short in reciprocating.”

The Iranian tanker Grace1 was seized by Britain while transiting the Strait of Gibraltar. The British tanker was seized by Iran while transiting the Straits of Hormuz.

So the question must be asked. Why is Great Britain acting so surprised and indignant?

Who is the provocateur here?

And all of this because President Trump did not like the deal Obama made with Iran on the nuclear deal. It was a deal that was working and Iran did not violate that deal. The USA did.

The population of Iran is 81 million people. The population of Great Britain is 66 million. The population of France is 67 million. The population o of Israel is 8.7 million. These three countries have nuclear weapons as does North Korea with a population of 25.5 million.

Why do Western nations with less populations get to possess nuclear weapons yet Iran is expected to remain nuclear free.

Personally I wish all nations were nuclear free but as North Korea has demonstrated the possession of nuclear weapons is a guarantee of security. Iran wants security and the only way to secure that security is by being a nuclear power.

I spent time in Iran in 1969 and again in 1972 while working as a merchant seaman on Norwegian and Swedish ships. I was there when the Shah was the ruler and it was an oppressive regime supported by the United States. In fact I was arrested in 1972 in Abadan on suspicion of being a British spy. I was taking photos in a place I was not supposed to be taking photos of military installations on the Arab Al Shat river. Because my Canadian passport said I was a British subject and Britain was not in favor in Iran at the time. I was questioned briefly, jailed and released.

While there I learned quite a bit about the history of Iran. And it all started as do most issues in the Middle East with oil. Mohammad Mossaddegh as Prime Minister nationalized the Iranian oil industry in 1953, an industry that had been built by the British on Persian lands in 1913 by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company that later became known as British Petroleum (BP)

As a result his government was overthrown in 1953 in a coup d’etat orchestrated by the CIA and MI6

Prime Minister Mosaddegh was the leading champion of secular democracy and resistance to foreign domination. Following a coup by the CIA/MI6-backed General Fazlollah Zahedi, Mosaddegh resigned four days later on 19 August 1953, with Zahedi succeeding him as prime minister.

Mosaddegh was imprisoned for three years, then put under house arrest until his death and was buried in his own home so as to prevent a political furor. In 2013, the U.S. government formally acknowledged the U.S. role in the coup, as a part of its foreign policy initiatives.

The foreign oil companies returned in 1953 and Iran became a dutiful puppet for Western powers under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a harsh autocrat. All democratic opposition was eliminated and driven into exile.

In 1972 I was a witness to the severity of the Shah’s secret police called SAVAK. While being interrogated I saw dissidents being brutalized by SAVAK agents. Thousands were rounded up and made political prisoners. The Muslim clergy were driven into foreign exile.

By 1978, Iran was a powder keg ready to blow after years of corruption by a government backed by the USA and the UK and finally on January 17th, 1979 the revolution led by Ruhollah Khomeini drove the Shah from power and regained control of the oil resources and declared Iran to be the Islamic Republic.

The revolution was quickly followed up by a U.S. and U.K. back Iraqi offensive against Iran that resulted in the Iran/Iraqi war that began in 1980 and lasted until 1988 with over a million casualties.

What was in 1953 a democratic nation was subverted by Great Britain and the USA into an autocratic dictatorship which led directly to that revolution and to the state that presently exists in Iran today. That plus the USA and the UK goading and financing Iraq under Saddam Hussein to invade Iran has led to a complete lack of trust by Iran towards the United States and Great Britain

And now the sabers are rattling again. Iran today however is not Iraq or Afghanistan, Libya or Syria. It is a powerful nation with a strong and well trained military and a war with Iran will be long, vicious, costly and brutal. It will be a conflict that will take the lives of thousands of soldiers on both sides and tens of thousands of civilians. It will be a war that will spill over into the Persian Gulf States, will erupt into new conflicts in Iraq and Syria, will see attacks on Israel and will disrupt commerce in the Middle East to dangerous levels not yet ever experienced.

To continue to provoke Iran makes no sense, politically, militarily or economically. Iran today is what the USA and the UK has made it to be through foolish meddling and interventions.

If this situation continues to escalate, Russia and China will begin to take sides and it is quite possible that Iran has already been provided with or has secured nuclear weapons.

I find it amazing that the British can seize a tanker in international waters and then not expect retaliation in a similar manner.

However I should not be surprised. The history of the involvement of Western powers in the Middle East for the last century has demonstrated over and over again the incredible foolishness of Western involvement in trying to control the people who control the reserves of oil.

What is the solution? The USA needs to honour the Iranian nuclear deal authored by the Obama Presidency. The sanctions need to be lifted and Iran needs to be free to participate on an equal level with other nations.