WHITHER IRAN?
A nation of young, well-educated, western looking people, governed by a medieval theocracy, with whom we shall have to go to war eventually. On arrival at the border crossing point from Turkmenistan I was somewhat surprised to see the walls of the hut where immigration formalities were conducted to be plastered with posters warning of the dangers of AIDS – and this in a country where buggery is illegal. I was further surprised to be summoned into an office to be questioned by an amiable English-speaking Iranian who wanted to know a great deal about my medical history, including whether I had ever had AIDS. I had not been singled out as apparently everyone entering the country by land is similarly interviewed. Assuring him that I had not, he stamped my passport and welcomed me into the Islamic Republic of Iran. As the UK is regarded by the Mullahs who govern Iran as the Little Satan (The USA is the Great Satan) it had seemed to me that having the passport of an innocuous country whom no one disliked might be a good idea. As I had been born in Ireland (as the Great Duke said, being born in a stable does not make you a horse) I applied for, and was granted, an Irish passport, which I have found doubly useful since leaving the French Third Empire.
Despite the Iranian government’s claim to adhere strictly to the tenets of their imaginary friend, they do understand their history, or at least their ancient history, and they do preserve it. One is proudly shown the graves of Darius, he of the Battle of Thermopylae who died in 486 BC and of Xerxes the Great, he of the Battle of Marathon, who died in 465 BC. Isfahan is nothing short of magical and one could spend several days wandering around it without seeing all it has to offer. Ironically, perhaps, it was because of its destruction by Alexander the Great that led to its preservation, for the site was abandoned and silted up, until being dug out many centuries later. Even in rural Iran many of the signs, including road signs, are in Farsi and in English, a hangover from the days when Persia was divided between England in the south and Russia in the north. The towers and temples of Zoroastrianism are still there and although alcohol is banned and unlike in other Muslim countries really is unobtainable, Armenians are permitted to make and drink (but not sell except to other Armenians) alcohol, their temples are open and used and their Christian priests openly wear their insignia of pectoral crosses.
As westerners are few and far between in Iran they are a curiosity when they do appear. I found that in Tehran young Iranians would approach me, not to sell me anything but to practise their English, which in most cases was very good. I found them remarkably open about their situation. One young man told me that while they used to hang homosexuals from cranes, things had changed and he and his friends all said they were homosexuals to avoid being called up for the army! I asked was this not rather a high risk strategy, as the policy might change, to which he replied that in that case they would all produce their girlfriends. Asked about sanctions, the majority said that they had no difficulty getting round most of them except for the inability to access the international money market, which meant that everything had to be done in cash as credit and debit cards could not be used. One young man did say that there was a way round the inability to use credit cards via a bank in Doha. Having exchanged £100 I found I was the owner of over five million rials.
I had noticed that in Tehran a number of Iranian girls, in their late teens or early twenties, had bandages on their noses. On enquiring what this meant I was informed that Tehran is the world’s capital for nose jobs. Apparently Iranian girls do not like the Persian nose – large and aquiline – and so they have the bridge surgically removed to give themselves a more petite version.
In Tehran a local guide was explaining the architecture of one of the many mosques. She spoke excellent English and was clad in a chador, an all-enveloping cloak worn by Muslim women, and, in accordance with Iranian law, a headscarf which had slipped back to show some (glossy and in good order) hair, with her sun glasses perched on top. A man in civilian clothes appeared, probably a member of the Basij, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard responsible for enforcing morality, who pointed at her head and rattled off an accusatory sentence in Farsi. I do not speak Farsi but as Nepali and Farsi are from the same root one can follow the gist of what is being said. Quick as a flash, the girl replied with what I think was the Farsi equivalent of words rhyming with ‘truck’ and ‘cough’. The chap beat a retreat. So things are changing, albeit slowly, in the face of strong resistance from the governing bodies.
In the rural areas I found little anti-western displays, and even in Tehran where the gable ends of buildings are festooned with ‘Down with America’ frescos, there was little outward show of hostility. The Iranian government have, however, shown that they have a sense of humour by renaming the street on which stands the British embassy ‘Bobby Sands Street’. Bobby Sands was a leading light in the IRA, which was demanding that those of their members who had been caught engaging in terrorist acts should be given prisoner of war status, rather than being treated as any other criminal. In international law PW status, like the protection of the Geneva Convention, is only granted to those who wear uniform, are members of the armed forces of a recognised state and who are governed by a version of military law. As the IRA met none of these provisions the demand was refused. On 1 March 1981 Bobby Sands, then a prisoner under sentence, went on hunger strike to pressurise the British government into relenting. On 5 May after sixty-six days he died of self-induced starvation. He thus became a martyr in the cause of Irish Republicanism, or of Irish stupidity, depending on your viewpoint. It is indicative of the level of intelligence of the organisation that nine more prisoners followed Sands in dying of starvation before the IRA realised that the British government would not give in. My suggestion that Bobby Sands should be recognised by Weight Watchers UK as their man of the year went unanswered. The renaming of the street caused much amusement amongst the embassy staff, who simply turned the back door of the embassy, on a different street, into the front door.
The Iranian government has taken to arresting persons who hold both British and Iranian nationality on trumped up charges of espionage in order to pressure the British government into relaxing sanctions or paying money which was owed. One of the more prominent cases was that of the wife of a British businessman who held dual citizenship. Although married she went by the hyphenated surname of her Iranian and British surnames. She was arrested during a visit to her parents in Iran. The British government took up her case and eventually after much publicity she was released after the British paid a legally owed debt – which could not previously be paid because of EU sanctions. The woman showed little gratitude, complaining that the British government should have secured her release much earlier! In fact the British government should never have got involved. International law, reinforced by Home Office guidelines, is quite clear: anyone with dual nationality who is in trouble with the authorities of one of those nationalities is not entitled to protection from the other nationality. A dangerous, and unnecessary, precedent has been set.
Iran is currently supplying Russia with drones to use in its war with Ukraine. She arms, finances and supports both the terrorist groups of Shia Hezbollah and Sunni Hamas and the Houthi rebels in Yemen in their attacks on civilian shipping and British and American warships in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Iranian agents have sought, so far unsuccessfully, to assassinate enemies of their regime resident in the UK. She is well on the way to developing nuclear weapons and states frequently and publicly that she seeks the complete annihilation of the Israeli state.
There are unlikely to be any concessions that would persuade the Iranian theocracy to observe the norms of international diplomacy. Sanctions are not working and so far neither are targeted attacks on Islamic terrorist bases by the West, nor by Israel in Palestine. The only way to bring them to heel and prevent them supporting various terrorist movements would seem to be by using force, and that should happen before they can produce a workable nuclear bomb. If the head is cut off and the Mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and its offshoots eliminated, then the average Iranian, a sensible, tolerant and pleasant person, would almost certainly rise and vote to be part of a secular democratic Iran. Surgical strikes and elimination of government leaders by special forces might achieve that without resorting to full scale war, particularly when our main attention should be focused on Ukraine.
If your verdict on Iran is "we're going to have to go to war with them anyway, therefore let's assassinate our way through their government until their young people rise up in support of us and spontaneously create in Iran what we could not enforce in Iraq"... are you not better off adopting Colonel Blimp as a nom de plume?
I think that there is an almost equal chance that Iran will go to war with itself.