The House of Lords on Iran: Glory and Humiliation

Glory and Humiliation: Iran, Britain and that Coup

The House of Lords on Mossadegh - February 2006

During a discussion on Iran at Britain's House of Lords in 2006, several members discussed their country's history of intervention in Iran. They conclude that the distrust Britain created among Iranians has come back to haunt diplomatic options over the nuclear issue today. Excerpts:

House of Lords, February 9, 2006: Iran Policy

Lord Douglas Hurd of Westwell (Conservative): Iran is an ancient country with a huge history of which it is very conscious. This is more than simply a platitude for after-dinner speeches; it is a relevant political fact. We have forgotten so much of our history and, in a way, the Iranians remember too much of theirs. They remember past glory; they remember humiliation—at our hands, Russian hands and American hands; and the coup of 1953 against Mossadegh—things which we never knew or have forgotten. Out of this comes a deep reluctance to be told by other people how they should behave.

Lord David Chidgey (Liberal Democrat): "It pays to put our relationship with Iran in some perspective. As has been said already, the Iranians are a very proud people. Through their history, they [trace] themselves directly to the ancient Persian empire. Indeed, they tell me that the collapse of the Persian Empire, following its defeat by Alexander the Great, still grieves them to this day, some several thousand years later. So the injustices that the Iranians suffered at the hands of the United States and us over 50 years ago are as fresh and disturbing to Iranians as if they happened yesterday. Iranians remember well that in the 1950's, the United Kingdom introduced a two-year embargo on Iranian oil exports as a response to Mossadegh's socialist government [this is patently false, his government was purely democratic] nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. They remember well that the United Kingdom, again in league with the United States, orchestrated the overthrow of their Prime Minister and the reinstallation of the Shah to counter the threat of Iranian oil and gas fields falling under influence of Russia. [That was the excuse, at least]

When I visited Iran, I was amazed to find that it is one of the few countries in the world where the BBC is intensely distrusted. Iranians believe that BBC World Service announcements to Iran facilitated the regime change of Mossadegh. [This has recently been proven true, as the BBC itself has admitted in their program "A Very British Coup", see links page] Again, they believe that the 20 million demonstrators who took to the streets against the Shah, which led to his fall, were mobilized through the BBC. That is what Iranians believe, and today they are still deeply suspicious of the United Kingdom instigating regime change from outside.

Iranians look around and see the US and UK military presence in Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan and the Gulf states. They are more or less surrounded. It is hardly surprising if Iranians consider that the pursuit of nuclear weapons as a deterrent against attack is the logical course. So how should we react? Clearly, threats of military reprisal could well be counter-productive. They could reinforce the inherent distrust and the hold that the regime has on the Iranian people through fear. They could encourage conservatives in the Iranian regime to pursue nuclear weapons development with all possible haste.

Baroness Shirley Williams of Crosby (Liberal Democrat): In that context, I add one thing to what the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, said, because it is often easy for us to forget these things. There was Mossadegh, there was the Shah himself who to a great extent was imposed upon the country, but we should not forget that the most dreadful war of recent times in terms of the loss of young men was the Iran-Iraq war. The level of casualties in that war was equivalent to the First World War in Britain or France; it was the sacrifice of a generation. That generation was mostly sacrificed to arms and weapons provided to Iraq by the West, particularly by the United States, in order to defeat and weaken Iran. That is not long ago, it is a recent memory and feeds deeply into Iranian paranoia about the West— a paranoia which is not, alas, entirely a fantasy.