The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

The British Marines—Why Were They in the Middle East?

Apr 16, 2007

The 15 marines of the British army who fell into the hands of the Iranian “Revolutionary Guard” were finally released by Iran on April 4. They had been held in detention for 13 days.

According to Tehran, the two boatloads of British marines were inside the territorial waters of Iran. According to London, they were inside Iraqi waters.

The Iranian leaders obviously wanted to show that they were able to intercept British soldiers near their borders, exactly as American soldiers had done with the Iranian “Revolutionary Guard” who were arrested recently in Iraq.

We will undoubtedly never know where the British soldiers were really located and what their real mission was. But this we do know–whether they were in Iranian waters or Iraqi waters, they shouldn’t have been there. They weren’t in British waters, no more than American troops are on American soil.