On November 30, 1971, as the last British forces prepared to depart military bases in the Persian Gulf and retreat west of the Suez, British authorities sought to transfer to the United Arab Emirates three small islands that shape the sea lanes just inside the Strait of Hormuz.
To preempt the transfer, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah who would be ousted within the decade, ordered Iran’s Imperial Navy to seize Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tonb Islands. The Iranians had always viewed the three islands as sovereign Iranian territory, making all sorts of arguments—diplomatic, political, and even linguistic—to solidify the Iranian claim.
The Iranians had always viewed the three islands as sovereign Iranian territory, making all sorts of arguments.
The shah’s aspirations expanded beyond the three islands; he had also claimed Bahrain as a wayward Iranian province, an ambition the Bahrainis overwhelmingly rejected in a United Nations-supervised plebiscite.
The monarchy and the Islamic Republic that replaced it might be diametrically opposed in their vision for Iran, but both could be equally nationalistic. As Bahrainis prepared to mark a decade of independence, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tried to precipitate a coup and revolution in Bahrain, replete with a Bahraini ayatollah swearing allegiance to Khomeini and the Revolutionary Guard-trained Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain.
In 2007, Hossein Shariatmadari, whom Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei handpicked to edit Kayhan, sparked a diplomatic incident when he published an editorial entitled reviving Iran’s irredentist claims to Bahrain. Fifteen years later, the regime republished it. The article argued that Western powers illicitly separated Bahrain from Persia, and claimed most Bahrainis wanted to return to the fold.
While both progressive Democrats and isolationist Republicans lament the U.S. military footprint abroad, one of the reasons why Bahrainis host the Fifth Fleet Headquarters is due to Iran’s ongoing threat to their existence. Had the United States not replaced the British on the island, it is likely that Khomeini, if not the shah, would have invaded or tired again to spark insurgency.
After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Emiratis maintained their claim but did little to litigate their claim, though they have kept their options open at the International Court of Justice and the United Nations. First Khomeini and then Khamenei refused to engage, and militarized the islands. Today, the Tonbs host Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps encampments, and Abu Musa hosts not only a base but, at least in the past, a significant chemical weapons stockpile.
Tehran can do what Abu Dhabi has been asking for decades: Discuss the issue at the United Nations or the International Court of Justice.
With the Islamic Republic reeling, launching hundreds of rockets and drones into Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and curtailing Emirati trade by mining the Strait of Hormuz—likely with small boats stationed at Abu Musa—the question then becomes why the United Arab Emirates has refrained from taking back the islands by the same means that the shah did just over a half century ago.
Iranians might complain and, indeed, the Iranian case for historical possession is persuasive. In such a case, then, Tehran can do what Abu Dhabi has been asking for decades: Discuss the issue at the United Nations or the International Court of Justice. In the meantime, though, freedom of navigation and the international energy trade would be safer if the islands were in Emirati hands. If, however, at this time the United Arab Emirates refuses to act, then no one should have any illusion: They are ceding control permanently and indicating their claims were little more than vestigial talking points never meant for other countries to take seriously.
