Withdraw British Troops from the Iranian border, Support IAEA-Iran Plan, No Sanctions on Iran

Statement by Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII)

In his Labour Party Conference speech, David Miliband acknowledged that there is no “military solution” to the problems in Iraq and Afghanistan and stressed the need to work with “all the neighbours of Iraq … to prevent that conflict first fragmenting the country and then spreading like a contagion across the Middle East". This follows the Foreign Minister’s acknowledgement in his 8th July interview with the Financial Times that there was “No evidence” of Iranian involvement in violence and instability in Iraq.

However, despite these crucial recognitions which come in the 5th year of Britain’s illegal occupation of Iraq, the US/UK’s self-made quagmire and the death of over a million Iraqi civilians, in practice, Britain is in danger of being embroiled in another planned imperial war.

The deployment of British troops to the Iranian border, at the request of the US military, follows the strongest yet accusations on 12th September by the US Commander, Gen Petraeus, against Iran. He accused Iran of fighting a “proxy war” with the Coalition in Iraq which he threatened could spill into Iran. In circumstances of broad concern about a US intention to manufacture a pretext for attacking Iran by initiating border skirmishes, the positioning of the British troops on the border could only serve the US intention to lend its illegal pre-emptive and premeditated war against Iran a degree of legitimacy by involving Britain.

This qualitative shift in the direction of war comes in the background of the IAEA-Iran workplan to resolve all the outstanding issues of Iran’s nuclear energy programme within a strict timeframe until November. The IAEA statement of 27th August, in a remarkable vindication of its workability, cleared Iran’s plutonium experiments. It further verified “the non-diversion of the declared nuclear materials at the enrichment facilities in Iran and therefore concluded that they remain in peaceful use”. The US, however, has stepped up its unsubstantiated accusations of Iranian involvement in acts of violence and destabilisation in Iran and labelled the IAEA-Iran agreement as insufficient and a delaying tactic by Iran towards building nuclear bomb. The US, supported by the UK and France, is persisting with the demand that Iran suspends uranium enrichment or face another round of Security Council sanctions, which could only pave the path to a military attack on Iran.

We call on the Prime Minister, not to deploy and to immediately withdraw the British troops from the Iranian border. We further call on the Prime Minister to fully support the IAEA-Iran agreement and allow it time to work without any US sabotage. We urge the Prime Minister to oppose another round of Security Council sanctions against Iran which as well as inflicting further suffering on the Iranian people, could also jeopardise the IAEA-Iran agreement and would be a prelude to a new US war,.

For more information please visit http://www.campaigniran.org

... Payvand News - 9/27/07 ...