‘The embassy is being invaded. The ambassador has had to lock himself in his office upstairs, and there are people on our balcony. Your government is responsible for the safety of our diplomats and embassy. We will hold you accountable…’ The voice at the other end of the line was calm, though there was no mistaking the underlying aggression. ‘The Vienna Convention is very clear about the responsibility of host countries for diplomatic missions.’
I received that call in the autumn of 2017, when I was coming to the end of my second year as Britain’s ambassador to Iran. A large group of demonstrators had been campaigning loudly outside the Iranian embassy in London for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who had been illegally detained since April 2016 in Evin Prison in northern Tehran. The protestors had breached the embassy gates, and a few had managed to get onto the balcony outside the ambassador’s office – the same balcony that black-clad, balaclavaed SAS soldiers abseiled onto when they recaptured the embassy from Khuzestan terrorists in May 1980. Perhaps it was little wonder that the Iranians inside, 37 years later, were fearful.
Araghchi will seek to keep Iran on the right side of Russia and China
To everyone’s relief there was no rupture in diplomatic relations that autumn night. Eventually I was able to reassure the Iranians that their diplomats and embassy were not at real risk, and the protestors limited themselves to unfurling a banner on the balcony before being escorted away. The Iranian diplomat who had called me was Sayed Abbas Araghchi. He was then a deputy foreign minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, working under foreign minister Javad Zarif. They had led the Iranian side of the nuclear negotiations in 2015.
In August, Araghchi was appointed foreign minister by the new Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian. During my stint in Tehran, Araghchi had been my main Iranian interlocutor. I was regularly in his office in the diplomatic quarter of the city. Sometimes our exchanges were routine or even amicable, but more often the meetings were confrontational. While our discussions were dressed up in diplomatic protocol and language, we would trade scripted accusations of bad faith.
From the West’s perspective, Iran’s stockpiling of excessive quantities of ‘yellowcake’, enriched uranium or ‘heavy water’ – ingredients necessary to create a nuclear bomb – were in breach of the Iran nuclear deal. The Iranians thought we were being unfair. On a number of occasions, Araghchi summoned me to the foreign ministry for a formal dressing down. He would shake his head and make clear, more in sorrow than anger, that the Iranian government of then-President Hassan Rouhani thought we were imperilling Britain and Iran’s stuttering but gently-improving bilateral relationship.
Upon his appointment earlier this year, Araghchi said that ‘easing sanctions’ was an important part of his mandate. He wanted to improve the domestic Iranian economy, currently buckling under the pressure of US and EU sanctions.
A downward spiral of tit-for-tat attacks between Iran, its militias and Israel over recent weeks was not the start that either Araghchi or the President wanted. Iran is now in diplomatic overdrive. Araghchi spent over a week in the US during the UN General Assembly in September, and more recently he’s been shuttling between Gulf capitals to try and dissuade them from allowing the use of their airspace for Israeli attacks on Iran. In Saudi Arabia, he was welcomed last week by a smiling Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. MBS seems to have realised that – as a former Foreign Office colleague put it to me last week – ‘a boxer’s clinch’ of Tehran stands a greater chance of successfully containing the Islamic Republic than direct confrontation.
Iran fired more than 180 missiles at Israel at the start of the month, and the expectation is that Israel will retaliate. Options range from a symbolic strike on IRGC, Iranian intelligence and military sites through to a full-on attempt to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. The response may be staggered and may use unconventional means. Perhaps Israel is planning something similar to its extraordinary and effective exploding pagers attack.
Whatever form Israel’s retaliation takes, Pezeshkian has already made clear that anything Iran judges as ‘disproportionate’ (hits on their oil and nuclear installations) would lead to a further escalation in the conflict. For the moment, Israel has concentrated on intensifying the indirect retaliation by targeting Iran’s proxies. Yahya Sinwar, Hamas‘ leader and the evil mastermind of 7 October, was killed this week, an undoubtedly important development in the war and a significant achievement for the IDF. Hezbollah, meanwhile, might be decapitated and degraded, but it remains a lethal force that can inflict damage on Israel and its population – as witnessed by the ‘swarm of drones’ that killed four and injured more than 60 IDF soldiers last weekend.
How might Araghchi now see a way out of what looks like an inexorable march towards regional Armageddon? He recently said Iran had ‘no red lines’ in defending itself and was prepared for ‘a war situation’. Still, he will be conscious that war could precipitate the fall of the Islamic Republic. He will seek to keep Iran on the right side of Russia and China (an objective which Israel also shares) and will want to avoid creating any pretext for the US to increase its military presence in the Middle East (the opposite of Benjamin Netanyahu’s aim). Araghchi would have noted the US announcing last weekend that it would send 100 troops to Israel to operate an advanced anti-missile system.
Araghchi knows that the severity and ambition of the upcoming Israeli retaliation will determine whether space remains for him to exert his diplomatic craft, or whether the window on diplomacy has closed. He will know, too, that there are powerful actors within the Iranian regime with different views and interests to his own. Military and political hardliners will want to undermine his work, deliberately or through the misjudged use of military force.
In due course, the conflict in the Middle East will enter a new phase once Israel responds. Araghchi’s threats, dressed up with charm and a smile, will be in high demand. His task is not only to ensure the survival of the Iranian government, but the Islamic Republic itself.
Comments