Why cut the thread of friendship with the shears of uncertainty?Abdur Rahman Khan, Letter to the Viceroy of India1
On 30 November 2011, following an attack on its embassy in Tehran, William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary announced his decision to close it down, and ordered its staff and dependants to leave Iran.2 The Swedish government agreed to assume the role of protecting power for British interests in Iran from 15 July 2012 and British nationals requiring urgent consular assistance were asked to contact the Swedish embassy in Tehran.3 This episode was not without precedent, as Britain experienced almost the exact same situation in early September 1980, when it closed its Tehran embassy and Sweden assumed the role of protecting power . The decision to close the embassy in 1980 was a significant one given the immense importance Britain had placed for centuries on close relations with Iran and came after a series of events, in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution of the previous year, which made the position of British diplomats there almost untenable.
This book analyses the performance of those charged with British diplomacy, particularly, those in the mission in Tehran, during the Iranian revolution, between 1978 and 1981. 1978 was the start of the chain of events which led to the end of the Pahlavi dynasty. This changed Britain’s position from a favourable one under the Shah to an unfavourable, even beleaguered, one under the post-revolutionary regime, as it was forced to conduct its affairs on a diminished scale through an interests section housed within the Swedish embassy in Tehran, which had been established for over a year by the end of 1981. The British embassy would not open again until 1990 and Iran has at the time of writing remained an Islamic republic. The revolution was one of a number of inter-linked seismic events at the time (including the ascent to power of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan ; Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ; and Camp David peace talks) whose impact was profound and whose reverberations are still arguably felt today. This work seeks to look beyond the impact of the revolution in addressing the wider issue of the challenges of engaging with an important state which has experienced a revolution.
The focus will be on the relationship between the embassy and London; the impact the embassy and the ambassador had on the shaping of policy; and the clear distinction between London which decided policy and Tehran which implemented it. The views of key diplomatic personnel, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and British ministers, will be examined to explain how Britain’s policy in regard to Iran was shaped, both at the policymaking and administrative levels, so as to establish what the means of diplomacy were, in addition to the ends, and how effectively these means were exploited. In order to establish this a number of key issues will be addressed including: the state of the Tehran mission and general Anglo-Iranian relations before the revolution; why the embassy failed to predict the revolution; to what extent policy was shaped by too great a focus on trade; why it was difficult to deal with a revolutionary regime; why the embassy was closed and an interests section opened; how exactly the interests section operated and performed; and why it proved impossible to reopen the embassy at an early date. Throughout, there will be an analysis of how effectively communications operated between the embassy and London as the Tehran mission moved from a large operation, serving a large expatriate community of 20,000 in January 1978, to a small community of dozens by the end of 1981.
In charting the evolution of Britain’s diplomatic relationship with Iran during this period, a number of factors will be considered, including: historical experience (notably the impact of the long-standing presence in Iran); geography (not least Iran’s important strategic position in relation to British interests in the Middle East and the subcontinent); economics (the importance of Iran to British commercial interests and as an oil producer); world politics (the desire to not ‘lose’ Iran to the Soviets , at a difficult point in the Cold War , as well as the need to balance British interests against cooperation with American and European allies); and domestic concerns (how policy was influenced by both ministerial and public views in Britain). Adding to the significant factors which shaped London’s policy were events on the Iranian domestic political scene, which were out of British control but had to be contended with. These included a general Iranian reluctance to engage in traditional diplomatic discourse, the lack of a clear, coherent power structure in Tehran and internecine conflict, which caused constant changes in key positions of authority and tended to undermine the position of liberal-minded individuals who were open to dealing with Britain on a friendly basis.
The period 1978–1981 saw Britain first operate a normal diplomatic mission with a friendly power; moving then to operate a much-reduced presence in a volatile state; before finally being forced to close its embassy and operate as an ‘interests section ’ under Swedish protection, whilst still maintaining formal diplomatic relations with Iran. During this eventful period, embassy staff, the FCO and British government ministers faced a diverse range of challenges, shaping policy towards a state marked by violence and uncertainty, which severely tested the skills of both policymakers and those charged with carrying policy out. It should also be noted that Iran’s diplomatic mission in Britain, with an embassy in London and consulates in Manchester and Hong Kong , continued to operate in the period under discussion. In order to understand Britain’s diplomatic relationship with the revolutionary regime, and analyse the impact of Iranian aims and objectives on British policy, this study will also ascertain what the aims and objectives of the Iranian mission in Britain were, as Tehran decided to continue diplomatic relations with Britain despite simultaneously making numerous hostile declarations against it.
The semantics of the word ‘diplomacy’ has been the subject of much debate, with one observer pointing out ‘it says much about diplomacy that so many people have offered such different definitions of it. None of these disagrees with the rest, but they contain enough va...