Britain refuses to refuel Iranian planes

[Barry]

Britain, Germany and UAE refuse to refuel Iran planes - Telegraph

Ahmedinejad is going to get really pissed over this.

This is a result of the latest round of sanctions. I think that Iran will now lay down their nuclear programme - what does anyone else think?

[manrow]

Britain, Germany and UAE refuse to refuel Iran planes - Telegraph

Ahmedinejad is going to get really pissed over this.

This is a result of the latest round of sanctions. I think that Iran will now lay down their nuclear programme - what does anyone else think?

Whilst I understand the sentiment, this is a very dangerous tactic to interfere with another country's air traffic which effectively they are. You imagine next time a real emergency requires an immediate landing in Iran; how long will it take to get the aicraft, crew and passengers out?

[Midas]

Britain, Germany and UAE refuse to refuel Iran planes - Telegraph

Ahmedinejad is going to get really pissed over this.

This is a result of the latest round of sanctions. I think that Iran will now lay down their nuclear programme - what does anyone else think?

I suspect it might well make matters worse with a tit for tat 'war' occurring. What happens if Iran refuses to refuel planes from any of the countries involved in this particular action?

[DaveUK]

Barry,
I think that the sanctions policy against Iran is very stupid and badly thought out, and a direct hostile act of war on the part of the west.
There's no evidence that Iran has a nuclear arms program. They've never been found in violation of the NPT, where as India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea are not even signed up to it. They are no more threat to the west than any other country in the Middle East.
They don't have a nuclear program to lay down Barry, it’s just pure fantasy.
At present they are not even producing nuclear energy, something they have the legal right to do.
The Uranium they have access to is too contaminated, so much so that they destroy the centrifuges before they can get anywhere near the 7000rpm they need to run at to operate. The last so called "scare" that the CIA claimed could have been a nuclear site turned out to be nothing more than hole in the ground caused by mining subsidence that the Iranians subsequently filled with concrete.
The accusation that Kazakstan has provided nuclear materal to Iran has been vehemently denied by the Kazak president.
The sanctions regime taken out against Iran is very similar to the measures taken out against Iraq in the 90s. You should read Patrick Cockburn’s books about Iraq just to get some idea of how disastrous this was to the people of Iraq. Far from bringing down Saddam and effecting regime change, it enraged the Iraqi people against the US, especially the majority Shia population who represented the poorest in Iraq and the hardest hit by the sanctions.
I remember listening in disgust and dismay when Tony Blair smugly told parliament that the rebuild in Iraq would take many years because Saddam had not invested in basic utilities and infrastructure. 20 years of war, air bombardment by the US and UK and crippling sanctions were largely to blame for Iraq being a broken country by 2003.
Do you remember the so called Iraq super gun scandal of the late 80s? Well this nonsense directly affected the company I worked for at the time. The home office decided that a company making steel pipes for export to Iraq, were trading illegally and were ordered to desist. Anyone with any engineering knowledge would have known that to suggest these pipes, fit for transporting either water, sewerage or possibly oil, would have had to have been made of a far higher grade of steel, and machined to far greater precision in order to be used to fire missiles.
I worked for a company that made clay and plastic drainage, mostly for export, much of it to the Middle East, Far East and other developing parts of the world. We got a letter from the home office telling us that we were not allowed to make or send any pipe like product to Iraq, as such products could be modified to make a firing barrel for a super gun.
Now I ask anyone here, just how stupid a policy is that? Or was it a cynically devised policy to cripple the infrastructure and utilities that the Iraqi people relied upon?

It’s my view that the US is attempting the very same cynical tactic with Iran, break the countries back, and then invade. They already have permanent military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most reputable serious commentators agree that the US has been conducting a secret war against Iran since 1979 (read Ronen Bergman's superb book).
My worry though is that a coalition sent into Iran would find even more fierce resistance than either Iraq or Afghanistan. The fiercest resistance in Iraq came from Shia "insurgents" (a word I find highly offensive to describe what I believe to be a legitimate resistance against an occupying army, the word literally means to oppose authority). The reasons for such fierce opposition to the US led coalition are numerous, the main ones being that we grossly underestimated the Iraqi's nationalist pride, despite the terrible oppression they suffered under Saddam. The Shia in Iraq have never forgotten how the US encouraged a Shia uprising in 1991, only to b abandoned and left to be totally crushed by Saddams loyal Sunni republican guard. It’s believed that at least 150,000 Shia Iraqi Arabs were slaughtered by Saddam during the put down of the Shia uprising, including the assassination of the several members of the Sadr family, the Shia's spiritual leaders.
And then 12 years of crippling sanctions which decimated the Shia population in Iraq. In Patrick Cockburn’s book he tells of how refuse collectors in Iraq had very little to collect once sanctions started to bite, not even melon rinds were thrown out. Because electricity supplies were limited people were having to cook rotting maggot infested meat to survive. Basic medication simply did not exist in Iraq during the 90s.

Much more thought needs to go into any policy on Iran. The west is playing with fire here. We're in danger of falling for the same speculative rhetoric that we all heard over Iraq, and look what happened.
And let’s not kid ourselves that this is all about Iranian nuclear arms programs. This is almost certainly about securing the precious oil, gas and mineral reserves in the region.

[manrow]

This policy needs a rapid rethink urgently.

[Barry]

There are now 3 USA aircraft carriers and 10,000 marines in the Straits of Hormuz which are a real provocation to the illegal Iranian regime. (Illegal because they fixed the election vote).
Iran are likely to consider any stop and search of their shipping as an act of war, sanctions or not.
Iran has a large number of fast boats and naval dinghies which could launch attacks and also many anti-ship silkworm missiles which could hit the USA's ships.
Obama, the false man of peace with the false Nobel peace prize, could be about to have his ass well and truly kicked.
The Iranian regime is in a no-lose situation, as a war would likely gird their nation against the enemy and to back the government against the 'big satan', the USA.

[DaveUK]

illegal Iranian regime. (Illegal because they fixed the election vote).
.

I presume you mean like the Illegal US government of 2000 that fixed an election and then Illegaly invaded Iraq??

[Midas]

Barry,
I think that the sanctions policy against Iran is very stupid and badly thought out, and a direct hostile act of war on the part of the west.
There's no evidence that Iran has a nuclear arms program. They've never been found in violation of the NPT, where as India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea are not even signed up to it. They are no more threat to the west than any other country in the Middle East.

[ ... ]

And let’s not kid ourselves that this is all about Iranian nuclear arms programs. This is almost certainly about securing the precious oil, gas and mineral reserves in the region.

Sorry to snip you so extensively Dave, but from what I understand about Iran, I would largely agree with your assessment. There have also been many independent reports commissioned on US foreign policy and the Middle East, and as I've long said, there's growing consensus that the US is trying to open up an American-controlled corridor from the Mediterranean to the western borders of China. This is one of the reasons why the US is so pro Israel, why it was so keen to get into Iraq on the false WMD premise, why it's so determined to stay in Afghanistan, and of course why there's this current build-up of allegations of nuclear programmes against Iran, the major 'missing link' country in the middle of that corridor.

As you point out, the possession of oil and other minerals is also a key feature of this policy, which is doing little but to exacerbate tensions across the whole region and continue the upward spiral of military readiness and anti-western terrorism, in themselves giving the US yet more 'justification' for continuing their present course of action.

I'm not saying it's true, but I can quite understand where some of the conspiracy theorists are coming from when they say that the US itself has been responsible for covertly engineering some of the terrorist atrocities on the west, so they can use them as a reason for yet more attacks on countries who don't fall into line with their plans of commercial and military imperialism.

[Barry]

I understand from reports today that the Iranian foreign ministry are saying that they are not having any problems refuelling their planes in Europe, so, I'm not sure about the veracity of either report now!