Peter Polack

The outbreak of an existential war between the USA and Iran has at the core, regime change in Iran with no apparent  secondary or parallel motives to allow a lesser outcome. History would direct us to an Iran willing to engage not only in protracted war with their neighbours but an extended urban guerrilla or terrorist conflict against the USA and their allies as well as their possessions in the Caribbean, Pacific and elsewhere. Any state that has a fingerprint on the death of the 86 year old grandfather leader of Iran can expect retaliation on the state itself as well as their citizens, wherever they may be.

The American president has painted a target on the back of every citizen of every USA friendly state for the conceivable future in likely limited but widespread acts of terror.

This paradigm is unlikely to affect most of the islands of the Caribbean with the exception of Trinidad, American possessions like the U.S.Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico and the British Caribbean territories.

The Iranian regime has a long arm having effected a large 1994 terrorist attack in Argentina that saw nearly a hundred people killed among many other acts of terrorism.

Trinidad has seen Muslim extremist attacks in the past by a failed coup but the next terror may come at the level of state leadership and institutions.

These countries are not alone.

The United Kingdom leadership authorized use of their bases for attacks on Iran that has now included a school of almost 200 dead girls. The U.K. Defence Secretary has announced protection of English citizens in the Middle East but has failed to confirm defence of the British elsewhere in the Caribbean.

For those in doubt of the ability of states to protect them, one need only reflect on the ghost like movement of a radical Muslim preacher from Jamaica to Africa and his subsequent return by expensive private jet. Give the devil his due as the Jamaican Prime Minister has tiptoed through the political rain puddles and his country should be unaffected by the latest American venture.

Regrettably, this is the predicament of the British Caribbean colonies who were content to be associated with being a base for trillions of American treasuries as well as English sovereignty. The Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands and others are all conjoined at the hip with the U.K. permission for Americans to use bases to attack Iran.

Every one of these island states, every single citizen, every woman and child of these semi-nations are not only under the protection of Britain but a target of their most recent enemies such as Iran and it’s proclivity for terrorist attacks. This means North American or British aircraft, public transportation, institutions and crowd events are now all a risky endeavour. A tourist jaunt cannot be a gamble with death.

No rum, palm trees or reggae music, just pervasive fear and apprehension.

Forewarned and all that.

Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer from the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88. 

His views are his own.