Page 99 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

96 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

something of a mystery, for he must have been aware that only a few days
earlier, on 30 November, the Persian prime minister, Abbas Hoveida, had
informed the niajlis that Persian sovereignty over the islands ‘had been restored

following long negotiations with the British government’. Hoveida went on to
emphasize the fact that Persia has ‘in no conceivable way relinquished or will
relinquish its incontestable sovereignty and right of control over the whole of
Abu Musa island’.
On the day that the Persians occupied the Tunbs by force the aircraft carrier

HMS Eagle, with No. 40 Royal Marine Commando on board, and the cruiser
H M S A Ibion were standing by in the Gulf of Oman. Why were they there? Was
it simply to give comfort to the British community in the Gulf by a last showing
of the flag? If so, then their mission was pointless, for they remained unseen
outside the Gulf and their presence there was largely unknown. Or were they at
hand to cope with any complications that might arise over the termination of
the treaties and the ending of Britain’s naval protectorate of the Gulf? If this

were the case, why was nothing done to contest the Persian landing on the
Tunbs on 30 November when the treaties with Ras al-Khaimah were still in
force, albeit that they had less than twenty-four hours to run? It is, of course,
futile to ask such a question. There was never the slightest intention on the part
of the British government to run the risk of offending the shah by thwarting his

wishes. On the contrary, its views harmonized exactly with those enunciated so
confidently by theSunday Times some months previously, that it was far better
for Britain to act the scapegoat in the Gulf and to bear ‘the probably short-lived
Arab odium that would result’.
As had happened so often before, however, it was not the British govern­
ment that had to bear the severest consequences of its delinquencies. While
most of the Arab states did nothing more than make the obligatory noises of

protest against the ‘rape of Arab soil’, the Libyan junta vented its anger at the
British government for its collusion with the shah over the occupation of the
islands by abruptly nationalizing the British Petroleum Company’s concession
and assets in Libya. The Iraqi government broke off diplomatic relations with
Britain and Persia, forcibly expelled 60,000 Persians from Iraq, and six months

later nationalized the Iraq Petroleum Company’s remaining holdings in the
country. There was at least one more victim of the ‘short-lived odium whic
was supposed to follow, and this was the amiable and inoffensive Shai
Khalid of Sharjah. Some six years previously his predecessor, Saqr ibn u tan
(who came from the Bani Sultan branch of the Qasimi ruling family), ha een
removed from power and sent into exile by the British political resident in t e

Gulf for conspiring to promote disturbances along the Trucial Coast. ow*
January 1972, backed by Iraqi money and arms, he made his return, aiin8
dhow from Basra, he landed clandestinely on the Trucial Coast wit a num1
of followers and made his way to Sharjah town. Calling on the popu ace to
him in avenging the ‘traitorous’ transfer of Abu Musa to Persia, e an