WAR: Coalition Forces Narrowly Avoided War With Iran

An unidentified senior British officer revealed that last year, U.S. Lt.-Gen. Ricardo Sanchez ordered Britain to attack Iranian troops who had crossed over into Iran. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard attempted to seize land that had been long disputed by Iraq and Iran, both claiming ownership. The incident lasted about a week until it was resolved with a phone conversation between British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Kamal Kharrazi of Iran.



The saber rattling between the U.S. and Iran is only just beginning. Now that control of Iraq has been officially handed over to the new Iraqi government, the U.S. can focus on issues such as the Iran nuclear problem. The U.S. also has the advantage of having massive bases already established in Iraq, making a confrontation with Iran that much easier.

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[edit on 30-6-2004 by dbates]

narrowly avoided or just delayed? i'm sure it's only a matter of time now for something to happen with iran.

I would tend to agree that Iran would be next, that would link three countries borderwise, Afghanistan,Iran, and Iraq which would be a strong base to hunt down the terrorists. Syria is another target but I believe confronting them now would only fuel the rumors of the US and Israel having major plans to get rid of the Muslims.

I can only hope that the Iraq situation will slowly start to get better after their elections in 05, if we can see some good progress from Iraq, then there is a possibility that further military actions against other countries could be shelved, but the prospects do not look good.

This is why Pres. Clinton and prior Presidents refused to aggressively go after the terrorists, the fear of escalation. Inaction on their parts has made this problem grow to the point it is at now. To stop now would only delay the inevitable, so the war must go on no matter how hard it is. IMO

I was just about to post on this myself, the incident is very much like Clarke's orders to the British forces in Kosovo when he ordered the taking of the airfield at Pristina from the Russians. Both Clarke and Sanchez made a decision that could very well have led to a much wider war.

Thank god for the British, heres another link

Telegraph

Originally posted by Phoenix
I was just about to post on this myself, the incident is very much like Clarke's orders to the British forces in Kosovo when he ordered the taking of the airfield at Pristina from the Russians. Both Clarke and Sanchez made a decision that could very well have led to a much wider war.

omg, the Pristina incident... Boy, do I remember that one. Russian troops were firmly planted at that airport and were already a bit unenthusiastic about NATO's presence in the region. Yeah, that could have ended up badly. Didn't NATO end up asking the Russians to leave, though? I don't really remember how that close-call ended up, to be honest.

and Jack Straw took care of this?! You say he handled and cooled things down? The same hot-head who wanted the UK to invade Iraq in the first place, despite his peers' opposition? Maybe this guy isn't so bad... or he's quite the lethal snake in the grass.

[edit on 6/30/2004 by AlnilamOmega]

Iran seems to be increasingly in the cross hairs of the Bush admin. But man I really think they are bitting off more that they can chew. The population while growing restless will no doubt fight any attempt to invade they country and any moves in that direction will wipe out the progress that the reformers have slowly been making overthere.

There was a Newsnight interview with Jack Straw a couple of days ago..

news.bbc.co.uk...

He talks about the incident, and says there was no "order" as has been reported.

He says this incident was sorted out diplomatically, and that there was "zero percent chance" of it escalating. It seems he was re-assuring the Iranians that the British have no beef with them, and won't be supporting any US aggression towards them.

I'm sort of warming to Jack myself. I've met him briefly on a couple of occasions..(he's my local MP), and while I didn't agree with him on many things, I do like the way he handles himself abroad. I'm happy for him to represent us on the international stage.