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General News    H3'ed 2/14/10

NATO's Role In The Military Encirclement Of Iran

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-[I]ncorporating the Gulf states into a global missile surveillance and missile shield program.

-Bringing the GCC nations not only under the U.S.'s missile and nuclear umbrella, but effectively under NATO's Article 5 mutual defense provision, the latter entailing the possibility of claiming that one or more GCC members is threatened by a non-member (that is, Iran) and using that as a pretext for "preemptive" attacks.

-Reprising NATO's Operation Active Endeavor in the Gulf by inaugurating a comprehensive naval interdiction that is, blockade in the Strait of Hormuz where an estimated 40-50% of world interstate oil transportation occurs. [9]

In 2006 NATO signed both military intelligence and transit agreements with Kuwait and initiated a new faculty for the Middle East at the NATO Defense College in Rome. NATO held a conference on the ICI in Kuwait in December attended by all six Gulf Cooperation Council states.

The next year four of the six GCC members - Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates - formally joined the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.

NATO's penetration of the Gulf continued steadily and in May of 2009 Admiral Luciano Zappata of the Italian Navy and NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (based in Norfolk, Virginia), while speaking of the new NATO Strategic Concept currently in progress, praised the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative as a "successful example" of the new model of "partnership and cooperation" the Alliance plans for most of the world.

What Zappata had in mind - the Iranian pretext for Western military expansion into the Persian Gulf for once wasn't evoked to hide NATO's real interests - was detailed in discussion of what was described as the "maritime dimension of the new strategy."

He said that "the network of ports, infrastructure and pipelines as
well as vessels sailing along sea lines of communication supports trade and is vulnerable to disruption.

"With the beginning of the exploitation of the resources at the bottom of oceans, there is a shift in security and strategic focus."

The admiral added that the United Arab Emirates are "a significant trading partner and energy supplier in the global economy. The new French military base opening at Port Zayed will be an important addition to the increasing international efforts in support of maritime security." [10]

On the same day as the above report appeared, May 26, 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was in the United Arab Emirates to open a new military base, his nation's first in the Persian Gulf and the first major foreign base in the UAE. The French facility in Port Zayed, on the coast of the Strait of Hormuz, "contains a navy and air force base and a training camp." [11]

"The base will host 500 personnel from the French navy, the army, and the air force. It will be able to simultaneously accommodate two frigates of the French fleet operating in the region....[T]he French base is the first of its kind in the Arabian [Persian] Gulf."

A Gulf analyst was quoted on the occasion saying, "The US has a number of military, air and maritime bases in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. The Abu Dhabi French Maritime Base is the first foreign military base for a friendly army in the UAE." [12]

"For France, the military base certainly improves its status within NATO as well as with the US as it would become the only NATO member other than the US that is stationed in the Gulf." [13]

The following month Sarkozy pushed a deal with the UAE for the purchase of 60 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of $8-11 million.

The previous year France led war games in the UAE, the 12-day Gulf Shield 01, with military counterparts from the host country and Qatar. 4,000 troops participated in the exercises, which "simulated a war pitting two regional countries and their ally against a neighbouring state which has invaded one of the two countries." [14]

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Rick Rozoff has been involved in anti-war and anti-interventionist work in various capacities for forty years. He lives in Chicago, Illinois. Is the manager of the Stop NATO international email list at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/
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