Saturday 11 January 2020

Strait Talking

Farewell, then, to His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, a monstrous old tyrant who modernised Oman beyond recognition, and a successful mediator with Iran who ruled over the last princely state of the British Empire.

Even Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have passed as much into the American as the British sphere of influence, a distinction that has once again become relatively clear in recent days. But Oman is practically a British colony.

Between 1957 and 1959, the RAF and the SAS were sent in to put down a rebellion in central Oman around Imam Ghalib Alhinai and against Britain's client, and Sultan Qaboos's father, Sultan Said bin Taimur. Then Britain just never left.

When another rebellion broke out, this time in the southern province of Dhofar, and when it looked as if the Sultan might not defeat it, then MI6, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence arranged to have the entirely British Officer Corps of the Sultan's Armed Forces replace him with his son.

Having been planned under Harold Wilson but signed off by Ted Heath, the coup was bloodless in the end. But it was staged as part of a British war that lasted for at least 14 years, yet which seems to have been forgotten despite having been one of the most important of the twentieth century, since it secured control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Britain began that war under a Conservative Government, and continued it under a Labour one, then under another Conservative one, and then under another Labour one. It was waged by a least four Prime Ministers, one of them twice. Yet who remembers it now?

Two important, but baleful, trends overlap here: the national amnesia about all Interwar and most post-War British conflicts, and the writing of Maoism out of the history of what is neatly misrepresented as "the Cold War".

But Britain did win the war in Oman, and the place has been a giant British military and intelligence compound ever since.

It plays host to the three GCHQ bases of Timpani, Guitar and Clarinet, which tap into the undersea cables that pass through the Strait, before obediently passing on their findings to the United States National Security Agency. There is the British military base at Duqm. There is the Omani-British Joint Training Area. There is the training role of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. And so on.

My point here is not that these things exist, but that, even in the context of the Iran Crisis and now also of the death of Sultan Qaboos, our supposedly free media, and our representatives possessed of parliamentary privilege, never, never, never mention them.

Sultan Qaboos helped to mediate the talks that led to the nuclear deal with Iran. He secured the release of the American hikers who had been held in Iran. He stayed out of the Saudi war in Yemen. He did not join in the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar. We must hope that Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said will continue in a similar vein. (By the way, I have no idea why he is "Al Said" when his cousin and predecessor was "al Said".)

Britain, however, is uniquely placed to do more than merely hope for that. There is every evidence from the last week or so that the British intelligence and security Establishment is profoundly wary of war with Iran. But its hidden pressure on the Government needs to be matched and balanced by open pressure in the media, on the streets if necessary, and above all in Parliament.

I will be standing for Parliament again here at North West Durham next time, so please give generously. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

2 comments:

  1. This is why you're not an MP and this is why you should be. Richard Holden is nice and he's making the effort, turning up to Consett AFC and all that, but he's not in this league, you're a once in a generation politician and Parliament is wrong without you. I'll not vote Labour for anything because they didn't give this seat to you years ago, you so obviously should have had it. Bloody hell, you sat and wrote this on a Saturday evening, who else could do that?

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    1. I shudder to think. But seriously, you really are too kind.

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