The English Job: Understanding Iran and Why It Distrusts Britain

Description

Amongst British diplomats there's a rather poignant joke that 'Iran is the only country in the world which still regards the United Kingdom as a super power'. But for many Iranians, it's not a joke at all. Scratch the surface, and Iranians of all political persuasions will remind you that it was Britain, with the US, who removed the democratically-elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh. The coup against Mosaddegh may have been in 1953, but for Iranians that feels like yesterday. Rather as we in the United Kingdom continue to define ourselves by what happened nearly eighty years ago at the start of the Second World War, modern Iranians define themselves by their bloody experience of the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, where the country had stood alone against Iraq. The conflict was an act of unprovoked aggression by Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq. The rest of the world - France, the Soviet Union, later the US and the UK - all piled in to support Iraq, with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States bankrolling Saddam. It was this experience that has helped define Iran's view of the world, and its attitudes to both its local rivals for power and those further afield. This book seeks to illuminate Britain's difficult relationship with Iran, and in doing so provide anyone with an interest in Iran, with a better understanding of this extraordinary country.

Jack Straw went to Iran in September 2001, the first visit to Iran of any British Foreign Secretary since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He went back to Tehran four more times as Foreign Secretary and has developed a growing interest in the country ever since.

"This timely book explains how the Iranian regime justifies its antagonism by playing on the country's unhappy modern history." The New Statesman "It explains the peculiar circumstances of a country finely balanced between becoming a nuclear power and risking international isolation." The Guardian Weekly A "compelling study." The Daily Mirror