Opinion - News Analysis

Is Britain the new ‘great Satan’ in Iran?

— Photo: AFP

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has accused the Iranian authorities of “suppressing” the media and clamping down on dissent.

Anyone who has been following the post-election turmoil in Iran would have been struck by the fact that, unusually, it is not so much America the ‘Great Satan’ as Britain which has borne the brunt of Tehran’s anger over alleged western interference in its internal affairs. It is almost as though the “Little Satan,” as Iranians like to call Britain, has dislodged America from its perch as the most hated western nation in Iran after President Ba rack Obama’s friendly overtures — the so-called “Obama effect.”

Iran’s supreme spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei personally singled out Britain for criticism, calling it the “most treacherous” western power, an “evil” and “enemy” of Iranian people. In remarks that understandably provoked anger in London, he told a rally in Tehran University on June 19: “Please see the hands of the enemy. Please see the hungry wolves in ambush, which are gradually removing their mask of diplomacy and showing their true faces. Be aware of them … They are showing their enmity against the Islamic Republic system and the most evil of them is the British government.”

The speech was notable as much for its hard tone towards Britain as for the fact that (at least in the free English translation published in British media) it contained no direct reference to America. The Ayatollah’s remarks came barely two days after British Ambassador in Tehran Simon Gass was called to the Iranian Foreign Ministry and berated for Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s “unconventional and impolite remarks” on the fairness of the elections.

There seemed to be no obvious provocation for this. For, until then Mr. Brown had not said anything that was significantly different from the American line — that while the issue of alleged rigging was something for Iranians themselves to resolve, the Iranian government should use restraint in dealing with protesters. In fact, other European leaders such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Markel had been more critical — the former calling the election a “fraud” and the latter demanding a re-run. (Since then Mr. Obama has also hardened his line warning the Iranian government against its “iron fist” policy towards protesters.)

Ayatollah Khamenei’s statement sparked a war of words. Within hours, the Iranian charge d’affaires in London, Safar Ali Eslamian Koupaei, was summoned to the Foreign Office and given a dressing down. After a tense meeting, which reportedly lasted less than 20 minutes, the Foreign Office tersely announced: “We made clear to the Iranian charge that the supreme leader’s comments were unacceptable and not based in fact. In the ambassador’s absence, the charge was called in.”

The reference to the “ambassador’s absence” was not incidental. The story goes that it was actually the ambassador, Rasul Movaheddian, who was summoned but he made himself “unavailable” and instead sent his junior in what was seen as a snub. Apparently, the Foreign Office wanted to draw attention to this perceived breach of diplomatic etiquette.

The BBC noted that the decision to call the ambassador itself represented a “shift of position by the British government,” which until then had wanted to avoid getting involved in a public argument with Iran. “However, Ayatollah Khamenei’s description of Britain as the most ‘evil’ of foreign governments was a step too far,” it said.

Even as the Foreign Office was lecturing Mr. Koupaei, Mr. Brown — speaking in Brussels — ratcheted up the rhetoric, accusing the Iranian authorities of “suppressing” the media and clamping down on dissent. He warned that British policy towards Iran would depend on its response to the current situation.

“We want Iran to be part of the international community and not to be isolated but it is for Iran to prove, not just to Britain but to the whole of the world and to their own people, that they can respect these basic rights,” he said. And, in a pointed reference to the Ayatollah’s remarks, added that the whole world was “looking … at the speech that has been made today.”

Since then, the relations between the countries have steadily deteriorated with Tehran first throwing out a BBC correspondent, detaining a freelance British journalist plus a group of local embassy staff, and expelling two British diplomats for allegedly spying. Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki alleged that British agents had been active even before the elections to foment anti-government protests with the BBC — especially its government-funded Persian service — acting as a British government tool.

In what one U.K.-based Iranian commentator dubbed “one of the most idiotic statements made by a serving foreign minister,” Mr. Mottaki said “they [the British government] sent planes full of passengers to Iran with special intelligence and security ambitions.” Another senior Minister, Hossein Mohseni Ejei, said Britain was one of the countries which “fuelled the situation by strong propaganda and some undiplomatic measures.”

Britain has retaliated by expelling two Iranian diplomats while rejecting Iran’s allegations as “absolutely without foundation.” In a sign of how Iran has unified Britain’s otherwise deeply divided political establishment, Mr. Brown, who is rather used to being booed by Opposition MPs, was applauded when he made a strongly-worded statement in the Commons attacking Tehran for its “unjustified” action and announcing the tit-for-tat expulsion of Iranian diplomats. There was cross-party support for a tough line against what MPs saw as needless Iranian provocation.

As tensions continue to rise with reports of alleged government-backed demonstrations outside the British embassy in Tehran , Britain has evacuated families of its staff amid concern for their safety. Indeed, it has not ruled out closing down the mission altogether if the situation worsens, saying it is monitoring the situation with the “utmost vigilance.”

While, no doubt, Britain has been stung by the Iranian attacks, nobody is really surprised. After all, the two countries have a long history of hostility going back to the 19th century, in fact even earlier: a history of Britain meddling in Iran’s affairs for strategic influence, and exploiting its oil resources. Then there is the more recent history of British interference such as its backing for the 1953 CIA-backed coup that toppled the nationalist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq and its role in propping up the Shah in the run-up to Khomeini’s Islamic revolution in 1979. Britain was also accused of secretly arming Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

Diplomatic relations have been strained for decades. Britain closed down its embassy in Tehran after the post-revolution protests, reopening it only in 1988 after the Iran-Iraq war. But the relations have remained frosty except for a brief period when Mohammed Khatami was President. In 2007, there was a huge diplomatic row after Iran seized 15 British sailors accusing them of spying in its territorial waters.

Even before the current crisis, London and Tehran were barely on talking terms as Britain led a belligerent campaign against Iran’s controversial nuclear programme and joined the U.S. and Israel in accusing it of arming militants in West Asia. There is thus a basis for Iranian suspicions of British motives. “The distrust of British motives is so deep that Iranians joke that if you remove a mullah’s beard you will find ‘Made in England.’ Suspicion of the West in general and Britain in particular has become part of our collective psyche,” an Iranian journalist said.

Ali Ansari, director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St. Andrews, believes that Iran’s “obsession” with Britain is as much a hangover of the past as an attempt by Iranian rulers to shift the “news stories from the suppression of dissent inside Iran to the international dimensions of the crisis.”

According to him, perceptions of Britain as the “wily fox” run deep in the Iranian political class with some even convinced that American foreign policy is dictated by Britain. This betrayed a “profound anxiety about the role of Britain in modern Iranian history,” he argued in an article in The Times.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have taken the “paranoia to new heights,” as Professor Ansari says, but the problem is that it is not only in Iran where Britain evokes such strong passions. What about Russia? What about Zimbabwe? What about much of the Arab world? What about Pakistan? And, indeed, what about the “friendly” India which Britain manages to rile every now and then? (Remember Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s disastrous India visit after the Mumbai bombings?)

Half-a-century after losing the empire, Britain must face up to the fact that the world is no longer cast in its image and should stop punching above its weight.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu