Note from Djibouti
Thought to start the blog with a recent post from ‘Iran in the Gulf’:
Iran continues to deploy soft power in the Horn, sponsoring a recent Iranian trade fair (October, 2009), and offering some 1m in loans to finance the building of a new Parliament building and Commercial Centre (funding committed in 2004). On a recent trip, I couldn’t help but notice a group of Iranians in casual clothes waiting in line for their visa-on-arrival. Since when is Lake Assal an Iranian tourist attraction? In the wake of the departure of Royal/Dutch Shell and Total from the Djiboutian/Ethiopian market, local service stations now bear the insignia of OiLibya, a marketing arm of Libya’s National Oil Company. Neither country is a stranger to the Horn, but a strange juxtaposition, next to American and French forces, and loads of Gulf businesses. Further indication of how everything is connected.
What might be Iran’s interests in the Horn, exactly? IRISL, the Iranian national shipping line, sends many vessels through the Suez canal each year, en route to Valetta, Tripoli, South America. The Somali piracy issue is as much a problem for IRISL as anyone else. More interesting perhaps is the above-described direct aid, in places where the US and other countries have a large military presence. If Iran controls Hormuz, who controls the Bab El Mandeb? Western forces based in Djibouti would appear to be the closest answer. Perhaps they want a better view of what’s going on in Yemen, or an entrypoint into the Arabian Peninsula. Or perhaps it’s ’simply’ about cultivating friends in strange places, that one day might be useful.
–EDC
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