Britain has to look back before it can look forward if it hopes to build diplomatic relations with Iran

By James Mills

Last week saw the thirtieth anniversary of the Iranian revolution and this week sees the start of an exhibition at the British Museum on Shah Abbas I of Iran. The latter has only been possible due to the cooperation of the Iranian government and the British Museum. I recommend everyone and especially Foreign Office staff on the Iran Desk to visit the exhibition as if we want to rebuild relations with Iran we have to know how they began in order to see how we can restore them. What’s more, thanks to a Labour government it wont cost you a penny either.

Relations between Iran and Britain sprang up originally out of mutual respect and shared interests. Sir Anthony Shirley was sent by Elizabeth I to the court of Shah Abbas I in 1598 out of a desire to build up trading relations and create an alliance with Christendom against the mutual enemy of the Ottoman Empire. What lay at the heart of this first mission to Iran was a view that Iran was an equal on the international stage. But a relationship that started off as equals has found itself defined by caricatures that owe more to a lack of understanding than dialogue.

This understanding of the history of Anglo-Iranian relations is essential if we are ever going to pursue a successful policy of engagement with Iran. Our ignorance to our entwined past with Iran is a failing on our side, the history of the last few hundred years in Iran is just as important there as the history of the last thirty years is here. For those who don’t believe this, then I take you back to the recent European offer of economic inducements in exchange for Iran giving up its autonomy of its nuclear energy program. It was resoundingly rejected by Iran and compared to the 1828 Treaty of Turkmanchia, which was imposed on Iran by Imperial Russia. When Amadinejad asks of the need for the USA to apologize for their previous acts against Iran he means it, and talks as clearly about the US involvement in the coup of 1953 being as relevant today as the US views the hostage crisis of 1979.

A reconsideration of policy is essential and the Obama administration appears to be beginning this with a policy “based on mutual interest and mutual respect”. But with last weeks closure of the British Council in Tehran, it appears that Britain is again dragging her heels. I acknowledge that there have been previous problems when dealing with the Iranian government but this is the time to draw a line in the sand and acknowledge the clean slate the US is offering Iran. Continuing the current policy of non-interference clearly has not worked and any idea of a pre-emptive military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is agreed by many including the former British ambassador to Iran, Sir Richard Dalton, as potentially illegal and only serving in delaying the nuclear program not bringing it to a close. Also, if the goal of sanctions was to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, well then they are clearly failing according to our own estimates of their nuclear capability. If it was to create regime change, then according to a BBC poll last month whereby only one percent of Iranians desire this, then sanctions are clearly failing. Therefore, the logical option open to us is the ending of sanctions on Iran and the rapprochement by means of trade. The very way by which relations were initiated four-hundred years ago.

The time is right for Iranian rapprochement with the economic situation that afflicts the world also effecting Iran. The IMF claims that oil prices of ninety dollars a barrel are needed for Iran to balance the budget, and the Iranian government’s own figures have changed between sixty dollars and fifty dollars a barrel over the last year. With current oil prices below forty dollars a barrel a major budget deficit is apparent. The rest of the Iranian economy is also in somewhat of a nadir. Inflation stands at almost thirty percent and unemployment is around twelve percent. The BBC poll of last month showed that economic worries are at the fore of most Iranian’s minds, with forty-five percent of Iranians concerned about unemployment and poverty. The demography of the country is also helpful, with two-thirds of Iranians under the age of thirty, Iran has a young population that will require jobs and are more likely to be permeable to change. They will also be the future generation of voters who will be politically dominant within Iran for decades to come and we cant risk radicalizing them towards the west. As last month’s student protests in Tehran towards the Israeli attack on Gaza showed.

There is a perception however that the conservatives in Iran have mass support. But what has to be remembered is that Amadinejad won an unexpected victory in 2005 with only thirty-seven percent of the vote. The latter was assisted by the ill thought out policy of the Bush administration’s “Axis of Evil” politics, failing to recognise the mood for rapprochement in Iran at the time. As an opinion poll back in 2002 in Tehran highlighted, two thirds of Iranians wanted direct US-Iran talks. Amadinejad’s share of the vote is an even paltrier figure when one considers that the liberal reformer Mohammad Khatamy won the two previous elections in 2001 with forty-nine percent and in 1997 with 57 percent of the vote. There is much talk that he could stand again this June and if a positive diplomatic narrative can persist then maybe it could counter the Iranian people’s apathy. But Britain must not acquiesce to the hard-core conservatives in Iran who fear this and must be seen to be following the policy of re-engagement that Barack Obama is pursuing.

The list of grievances towards both the USA and Britain over the last century is condemning and justified. Once we recognise our earlier mistaken policies towards Iran we will be in a position to truly say that we are outstretching our hand in friendship. If Tony Blair can apologize for Britain’s involvement in the slave trade then it’s not unimaginable that Gordon Brown can apologize for certain imperialist actions of the British Empire. Back in 1622 both our kingdoms worked together to combat a mutual enemy. Then it was the Portuguese now we have mutual enemies in the form of the Taliban and al-Qaeda and mutual goals in a stable Middle East. If we can remember that sentiment of mutual respect that we had when Anglo-Iranian relations began then maybe we can achieve our mutual aspirations. When Sir Anthony Shirley returned to Britain he described the country as somewhere where “we may learn many great and good things”. A sentiment that should be mirrored today by the incentive that sent Shirley originally to Iran, trade.

This article was also posted in Tribune.