Iran appears to have launched a game of nerves with the UK that could have unpredictable consequences.
Alicia Kearns, a leading backbencher in the UK’s Conservative party, has called on the government to recall the ambassador Simon Shercliff from Tehran if Iran's former deputy defence minister Ali Reza Akbari were executed. On Saturday, Iran’s judiciary announced that Mr Akbari, who became a British citizen after quitting Iranian politics and arriving in London in 2009, had been hanged.
The case involving Mr Akbari has many hallmarks of repeated confrontations between the UK and Iran over the past decade. A new strand of this cycle of crisis in the relationship is also now apparently moving to the fore. It is not hard to see that there could be a run of more attacks and incidents that will become a form of dirty war between the two countries.
Withdrawing the ambassador would certainly be a setback for the entire diplomacy of the Middle East.
The British mission in Tehran has never lost its historic importance. Mr Shercliff is a skilled and insightful diplomat who adds much to the UK presence in the region. Go back a decade or more to the last time there was no ambassador in Tehran and things were very messy indeed. That the two countries are on the brink of a new phase of dispute and tensions is very worrying, especially as the fallout from it could go far beyond the bilateral relationship.
There is little good in pretending that the dynamic is not already playing out
The idea is given credibility by the absence in London of Iran’s ambassador, who is said to have been recalled under hardliner pressure. While Mohsen Baharvand had Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) credentials, that wasn’t enough to prevent his early recall. The charge d’affaires in the UK had taken an unsympathetic public line against demonstrators in Iran who came out after the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.
Already there is a diplomatic mismatch in the relationship, and history shows that things go wrong with alarming speed.
The last time the UK embassy inside Iran was stormed, in 2011, the then ambassador Dominick Chilcott was out of the country. His deputy, still in country, managed a fraught situation well but there was a threat to life at the time. The Iranian embassy staff in the UK was privately apologetic and disconcerted by the attempted razing of the UK mission and its residential compound in Tehran’s northern suburb of Gholhak.
What is most instructive is that the allies of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, egged on the attack. Iranian Parliament's then speaker, Ali Larijani, said the wrath of the pro-government crowds stemmed from “decades of domination-seeking behaviour of Britain”. It was not until after the signing of the nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, that a new British ambassador was able to return to Iran.
Alistair Burt, who at the time of the embassy assault said that it could not have happened without the backing of the Iranian leadership, told British television this week that showdowns such as the one revolving around Mr Akbari are always the product of a power struggle in Iran.
Newspaper reports this week suggested that the discovery of uranium-tainted package at Heathrow Airport around Christmas was being treated as a “dry run” by Iran for a more formal attack. The idea that this could happen is not so fanciful. Not long after diplomatic relations resumed in 2016, both sides managed to play down the discovery of a lock-up bomb factory just outside of London linked to Tehran.
The international situation effectively means that there is no way out for Iran from its deteriorating ties with the West. The accumulation of evidence towards proscribing the IRGC in the UK and EU, and possibly in Canada, is such that the announcement looks more and more like a formality.
Leo Docherty, the UK's undersecretary of state for Europe told parliament that a move to proscribe the group – which would make a criminal offence to belong to it, attend its meetings or carry its logo – was certainly on the cards.
"It would be wrong of me to speculate about the outcome of the government's current consideration of this issue, which is active," Mr Docherty said during a debate in the House of Commons last week. "But I can say that I think the calls right across the house, and the unity with which these calls are being made on all sides will be noted by the government and this is something that we regard as extremely serious."
Under the current Iranian leadership, there is a pattern of singling out the UK to bear the brunt of these degraded relationships. The tensions between the diplomats, foreign office ministers and leading politicians such as Ms Kearns always revolve around whether or not a strict stance will goad and fuel Iran.
Tehran’s appetite to take this to the next stage certainly seems to be strong just now, although proscribing the IRGC could certainly trigger retaliation. There is little good in pretending that the dynamic is not already playing out.
The problem is that there are not many options left other than to take the strongest self-defence steps in such a poisoned situation.
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
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I am in awe of the remarkable women in the Arab region, both big and small, pushing boundaries and becoming role models for generations. Emily Nasrallah was a writer, journalist, teacher and women’s rights activist
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What is favourite English film?
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Antonio Muñoz Molina
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MORE ON THE US DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League final:
Who: Real Madrid v Liverpool
Where: NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium, Kiev, Ukraine
When: Saturday, May 26, 10.45pm (UAE)
TV: Match on BeIN Sports
The Bio
Favourite Emirati dish: I have so many because it has a lot of herbs and vegetables. Harees (oats with chicken) is one of them
Favourite place to go to: Dubai Mall because it has lots of sports shops.
Her motivation: My performance because I know that whatever I do, if I put the effort in, I’ll get results
During her free time: I like to drink coffee - a latte no sugar and no flavours. I do not like cold drinks
Pet peeve: That with every meal they give you a fries and Pepsi. That is so unhealthy
Advice to anyone who wants to be an ironman: Go for the goal. If you are consistent, you will get there. With the first one, it might not be what they want but they should start and just do it
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4,872 matches
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76 nations
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2 Kuwaiti teams
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Retail gloom
Online grocer Ocado revealed retail sales fell 5.7 per cen in its first quarter as customers switched back to pre-pandemic shopping patterns.
It was a tough comparison from a year earlier, when the UK was in lockdown, but on a two-year basis its retail division, a joint venture with Marks&Spencer, rose 31.7 per cent over the quarter.
The group added that a 15 per cent drop in customer basket size offset an 11.6. per cent rise in the number of customer transactions.
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- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
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The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
