The creation of a US-led international naval command center in Bahrain is an empty gesture by the Trump administration to appease the anti-Iran war lobby in Washington, former UK Ambassador Peter Ford told Sputnik
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th November, 2019) The creation of a US-led international naval command center in Bahrain is an empty gesture by the Trump administration to appease the anti-Iran war lobby in Washington, former UK Ambassador Peter Ford told Sputnik.
Participants from Australia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the UK and the United States all attended the opening of Coalition Task Force (CTF) Sentinel's new command center at Naval Support Activity, Bahrain on November 7, US Naval Forces, Central Command (CENTCOM) said.
"[The] Command Center is merely a gesture to compensate for the US failure to bring Iran to heel and to appease the war lobby in Washington," Ford, who once served as the UK's ambassador to Bahrain and Syria, said.
Besides, he added, convoys with military escort are now the norm in the area and have been for months.
"The impression prevails that this latest development is just window dressing for existing operations," Ford said. "And window dressing is definitely needed."
The "anti-Iran coalition" is noticeably thin on details and what - if any - value will be added and is unlikely to reverse the decline of US and Saudi influence in the region, he said.
"The UAE, nominally one of the coalition countries, has been conspicuously trying to mend fences with Iran - hardly surprising when it is that country, alongside Saudi Arabia, not the US, which is likely to pay the highest price for US adventurism and bullying with regard to Iran," Ford said.
The command merely makes it slightly easier for the United States to "dragoon" its partners into conducting activities some of them are reluctant to perform, the former envoy said.
"We learn that Albania, with all the massive resources of the Albanian Navy at its disposal, has just joined the Coalition: Another country sucking up to the US at low cost," Ford said. "Will security in the Gulf be enhanced? Hardly."
The center is also unlikely to alter Tehran's strategic and military calculations "one iota," Ford explained.
Iran has vividly demonstrated it has the capability, ingenuity and willingness to confront and impose a heavy price on the United States and its vulnerable satellites, the former envoy said.
Besides, he added, America's most formidable naval assets are wary of entering the Gulf for fear of being humiliatingly crippled. Ford pointed out that the statement revealingly implies that only destroyers, frigates, corvettes and patrol craft will venture into range of Iran.
In addition, Ford said, the command center will do nothing to plug the holes in the sieve of US sanctions, which Iran has quietly managed to circumvent to a large extent.
"US think tanks are churning out reports seething with anger at Iran's success in defying the United States and imposing its own rules in the Middle East. Iran can afford to ignore this latest provocation," Ford said.
The real purpose of the coalition was to promote maritime instability in the Gulf rather than stability, Ford added. The objective is to ensure safe passage for all countries except Iran and to enhance freedom of navigation for all vessels except unarmed Iranian oil tankers, the former ambassador said.
Ford also pointed out how the statement "with hilarious unconscious irony" boasted that the coalition joined together to show their commitment to the international rules-based system.
"Rules which apparently do not apply to a superpower which just days previously announced its intention to flout the 4th Geneva Convention by taking control of Syrian oilfields to fund protection costs for its own illegal presence," Ford said.
Hence, the former UK ambassador concluded, the coalition statement confirms the perennial US motto: "Do as I say, not as I do."
