What if the West had supported Mossadegh? Probably would have turned out like all those other benevolent Middle Eastern rulers.
Chris Wheatley
2 years ago
History alone would make it difficult to negotiate with Iran. Then there is the added factor of not knowing who to negotiate with.
In the absence of a separation between religion and state, you have to negotiate with a religion. Every religion is a matter of interpretation – the religion has its holy books and each cleric, each ayatollah, each member has his own interpretation (not to mention her own interpretation).
Before meaningful negotiations could start you would effectively have to ask the Iranian negotiators if they had any power to deliver an agreement, if they truly represented the country – and that would be an insulting way to begin any discussion.
Perhaps the way forward is to open up Climate Change discussion with Iran. Everybody there could see that the future value of their oil would decline and it would be in their national interest to react in some way. Then the true leaders might have to join in and you might develop a rapport which could continue to other things.
There is nothing religious about Iran’s foreign policy. And Iran, the country, negotiated perfectly fine with the JCPOA — it is the US and its lapdog the UK which re-negged on the deal unilaterally.
Your comment misses the mark, the Iranian government was perfectly willing to negotiate — indeed the not-“hardliners” lost a lot of face when the US (with the UK’s solemn support) backed out of the JCPOA.
Imagine, if you will, if your conservative uptight father is unsure of the person you’re marrying — and then that person cheats on you shortly after engagement. Then a few years later they come back and ask to try over — do you think your stern father is going to feel like you have the best interests of the family at heart?
Javid Zarif and those involved with the JCPOA stuck their necks out for rapprochement and the US (and the UK in tow) made sure the blade fell on them. Now we have these awful thinkpieces which suggest it was Iran’s fault all along.
For forty years the West has tried to kill the Iranian government but only succeeded in killing Iranian civilians. Maybe that is what should change?
It’s a globalized world, if you want to ignore a country of 90m in the middle east be my guest, but the “stick and stick” approach to dealing with Iran has not worked.
It is a sovereign nation, if they want nuclear power and an increasingly powerful military that is their right. If the west doesn’t want that, then they need to have a relationship with Iran — wouldn’t you agree?
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
2 years ago
So we have the NHS to blame for the Iranian revolution
Chris Eaton
2 years ago
If frogs had pockets they would pack pistols and shoot snakes.
Jon Redman
2 years ago
…the inevitable winner … was part of the four-man team responsible for the public executions of up to 30,000 Leftists
So he’s not all bad?
Armand L
2 years ago
This is an absurd and ahistorical article. An insult to the reader’s intelligence.
Some facts for you: The Iranian public, the ones the author seems concerned for, are suffering under sanctions designed to slowly starve and sicken them. Medical supplies and food products are blockaded. The UK supports this, the UK also supports the butchering of Yemeni farmers in Yemen.
All the talk of proxies, hardliners, and regimes would be better appreciated if the UK didn’t dutifully roll out the green carpet for Saudi Arabia and every other hardline regime that uses proxy warfare. I saw MBS’ face emblazoned across Hyde Park, I saw the Queen of England give her hand to him and Theresa May curtsey to him. So don’t talk about the evil Iranian regime being an outlier, the UK and the British people are perfectly content to work with, and indeed work for, belligerent hardline regimes.
So putting aside craven moralistic platitudes we’re left with a country that was treated with indignity for decades. In 1979, due to a impossibly difficult confluence of reasons, everything changed. Now will the US, UK, and its NATO allies admit that they gave mustard gas and long range missiles to Saddam and the Baathists to kill Iranian civilians? Will they treat Iran with dignity and allow the country to breathe — after Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign which the UK endorsed?
The double-standards are pathetic and this is yet another extremely typical and not at all UnHerd/UnHeard bit of foreign policy activism. The subtext is clear: Iran must be regime-changed. Well, good luck I hope you enlist Maurice. I hope you go on the front lines and try to cross the Zargoz mountains on foot.
This is a regime which organises a ‘Holocaust cartoon competition’ and imprisons innocent foreign civilians. I’m not sure what you are trying to support?
I’m supporting facts and reality, not war-mongering agitprop.
The UK’s loving allies in Saudi Arabia execute people for sorcery. So where’s your outrage for this ‘support’?
Someone who doesn’t fall for pathetic propaganda and warmongering. Iran exists as it does, here and today. Until people like Maurice Glasman (and his financial backers) accept that there are real live people in there, and a real land, and a real geography, and a real (complicated) history attached to the land, intrinsic to the identity of the government and the people… they are only going the wrong direction.
What if the West had supported Mossadegh?
Probably would have turned out like all those other benevolent Middle Eastern rulers.
History alone would make it difficult to negotiate with Iran. Then there is the added factor of not knowing who to negotiate with.
In the absence of a separation between religion and state, you have to negotiate with a religion. Every religion is a matter of interpretation – the religion has its holy books and each cleric, each ayatollah, each member has his own interpretation (not to mention her own interpretation).
Before meaningful negotiations could start you would effectively have to ask the Iranian negotiators if they had any power to deliver an agreement, if they truly represented the country – and that would be an insulting way to begin any discussion.
Perhaps the way forward is to open up Climate Change discussion with Iran. Everybody there could see that the future value of their oil would decline and it would be in their national interest to react in some way. Then the true leaders might have to join in and you might develop a rapport which could continue to other things.
There is nothing religious about Iran’s foreign policy. And Iran, the country, negotiated perfectly fine with the JCPOA — it is the US and its lapdog the UK which re-negged on the deal unilaterally.
Your comment misses the mark, the Iranian government was perfectly willing to negotiate — indeed the not-“hardliners” lost a lot of face when the US (with the UK’s solemn support) backed out of the JCPOA.
Imagine, if you will, if your conservative uptight father is unsure of the person you’re marrying — and then that person cheats on you shortly after engagement. Then a few years later they come back and ask to try over — do you think your stern father is going to feel like you have the best interests of the family at heart?
Javid Zarif and those involved with the JCPOA stuck their necks out for rapprochement and the US (and the UK in tow) made sure the blade fell on them. Now we have these awful thinkpieces which suggest it was Iran’s fault all along.
For forty years the West has tried to kill the Iranian government but only succeeded in killing Iranian civilians. Maybe that is what should change?
Why does the West need a relationship with Iran at all? What do we gain from it?
It’s a globalized world, if you want to ignore a country of 90m in the middle east be my guest, but the “stick and stick” approach to dealing with Iran has not worked.
It is a sovereign nation, if they want nuclear power and an increasingly powerful military that is their right. If the west doesn’t want that, then they need to have a relationship with Iran — wouldn’t you agree?
So we have the NHS to blame for the Iranian revolution
If frogs had pockets they would pack pistols and shoot snakes.
So he’s not all bad?
This is an absurd and ahistorical article. An insult to the reader’s intelligence.
Some facts for you: The Iranian public, the ones the author seems concerned for, are suffering under sanctions designed to slowly starve and sicken them. Medical supplies and food products are blockaded. The UK supports this, the UK also supports the butchering of Yemeni farmers in Yemen.
All the talk of proxies, hardliners, and regimes would be better appreciated if the UK didn’t dutifully roll out the green carpet for Saudi Arabia and every other hardline regime that uses proxy warfare. I saw MBS’ face emblazoned across Hyde Park, I saw the Queen of England give her hand to him and Theresa May curtsey to him. So don’t talk about the evil Iranian regime being an outlier, the UK and the British people are perfectly content to work with, and indeed work for, belligerent hardline regimes.
So putting aside craven moralistic platitudes we’re left with a country that was treated with indignity for decades. In 1979, due to a impossibly difficult confluence of reasons, everything changed. Now will the US, UK, and its NATO allies admit that they gave mustard gas and long range missiles to Saddam and the Baathists to kill Iranian civilians? Will they treat Iran with dignity and allow the country to breathe — after Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign which the UK endorsed?
The double-standards are pathetic and this is yet another extremely typical and not at all UnHerd/UnHeard bit of foreign policy activism. The subtext is clear: Iran must be regime-changed. Well, good luck I hope you enlist Maurice. I hope you go on the front lines and try to cross the Zargoz mountains on foot.
This is a regime which organises a ‘Holocaust cartoon competition’ and imprisons innocent foreign civilians. I’m not sure what you are trying to support?
I’m supporting facts and reality, not war-mongering agitprop.
The UK’s loving allies in Saudi Arabia execute people for sorcery. So where’s your outrage for this ‘support’?
Why does the Iranian state lynch homosexuals from cranes? Just asking.
Because they’ve a repressive and regressive government much like many of the allies of the UK. It’s besides the point, Jon.
Someone who doesn’t fall for pathetic propaganda and warmongering. Iran exists as it does, here and today. Until people like Maurice Glasman (and his financial backers) accept that there are real live people in there, and a real land, and a real geography, and a real (complicated) history attached to the land, intrinsic to the identity of the government and the people… they are only going the wrong direction.
“Maurice Glasman (and his financial backers)”. I think you’ve just given your game away.