Page 96 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

The Retreat front the Gulf 93

British charge d’affaires in Tehran a note protesting against the alleged flights of
Royal Air Force planes over Persian islands in the Gulf, including Abu Musa
and the Tunbs, and stating that orders had been given to Persia’s warships in
the Gulf to open fire if any such incidents occurred again. It never seemed to
occur to the Foreign Office to tell the shah that the establishment of the UAE

was none of his business but solely that of the shaikhdoms concerned and of
Britain as the tutelary power. Instead, every effort was made to mollify him and
to treat his pretensions with deference and solemnity. There was, of course,
good reason, at least in the Foreign Office’s eyes, to pander to his whims in May
1971; for that same month his ministers had signed a contract for the purchase
of Chieftain tanks and communications equipment from Britain to a value of
over £100 million. The contract had been obtained through the agency of one

of the shah’s confidants, a Parsee named Shapoor Reporter, to whom the
Crown Agents are said to have paid more than £1 million in commissions.
Money, however, was not all that Reporter wanted as payment for his services
to the British government. He also wanted public recognition, and this was
accorded him by the award of a knighthood in the Queen’s birthday honours in

1973. If the British government was prepared to go this far to oblige an intimate
of the shah, it was hardly likely to offer any resistance to that monarch’s
ambitions in the Gulf.
Luce was sent out to the Trucial Coast again in June, this time to tell the
rulers of Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah that they could expect no help from
Britain if the Persians saw fit to occupy Abu Musa and the Tunbs by force, and
that they would be wise, therefore, to seek an accommodation with the shah.

The latter, so it was said, was prepared to reach a financial understanding with
Sharjah to protect the shaikhdom’s oil-prospecting rights in the waters around
Abu Musa. Where the inspiration for this proposition came from is not clear,
though it bore a distinct resemblance to the offer reputedly made by Faisal to

Zayid regarding the Zarrara oilfield. Muhammad Reza Shah refused to treat
with Ras al-Khaimah over the Tunbs, since the islands, he maintained, were
Persia’s by incontrovertible right. Saqr ibn Muhammad of Ras al-Khaimah,
for his part, was just as determined to resist the shah, and he had hopes that he
might be aided in his resistance by the government of Iraq, with which he had
been in close contact for over a year and which was itself at daggers drawn with
the Persian ruler. Saqr was hardly to be swayed, therefore, by Luce’s admoni­

tions. His fellow ruler, Khalid ibn Muhammad of Sharjah, was, as indicated
already, of different metal. He was sorely in need of money and he did not want
to be left out of the federation. He stood to lose on both counts if he did not
compromise with the shah over Abu Musa, so he allowed himself to be
persuaded by Luce’s arguments. With this barrier to its formation removed,
t e federation of six Trucial Shaikhdoms, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah,

>man, Umm al-Qaiwain and Fujairah - henceforth to be known as the United
Arab Emirates, al-imarat al-arabiyya al-muttahida - was officially proclaimed