Angry regime accusations of provocative meddling by Britain, the US and Europe in Iran’s post-election upheaval have been crisply batted away by British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband and other Western politicians. But the daily torrent of allegations is straining already rocky relations with Tehran and could have a lasting negative impact in a range of policy areas — principally on future efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
A seemingly orchestrated campaign to blame Iran’s troubles on the West is now in full swing and it is uncertain how far the regime is prepared to go. British and European ambassadors have been repeatedly carpeted by the foreign ministry. BBC broadcasts have been jammed and its resident correspondent expelled. And in an unsubtle attempt to deflect attention from himself, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US President Barack Obama to “correct your interfering stances.”
Following the cue by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday, when he described Britain as the “most evil” of Iran’s foreign foes, pro-government media have escalated their attacks.
PHOTO: AFP
“Brown is one of the most inefficient politicians of England who has witnessed cases of financial corruption in his Cabinet ... and has moved toward collapse and destruction,” the Siyasat-e-Ruz newspaper said. “He is trying to interfere in other countries’ domestic affairs in order to hide his failures.”
According to the BBC’s monitoring service, Iranian al-Alam television has been continually broadcasting “confessions” by two alleged members of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, also known as the People’s Mojahedin of Iran, a US-designated terrorist group opposed to the regime. Al-Alam said the two had admitted receiving instructions from the group’s “operations room in Britain” that included incitement of demonstrators and “sabotage attacks inside Iran.” Other channels have carried similar reports.
Raising this witch-hunt to a new heights of fantasy, Iran’s security forces are claiming that unknown “terrorists” and “vandals,” rather than they themselves, were responsible for shooting and killing demonstrators in Tehran on Saturday. With relatively independent figures such as Ali Larijani, speaker of the Majlis (parliament), giving credence to talk of foreign plots, and with the Majlis’ foreign policy commission calling for a review of diplomatic ties with Britain, it is possible on current trends that Britain’s ambassador may soon be packing his bags. Ominously, a foreign ministry spokesman, Hassan Qashqavi, refused on Monday to rule out expulsion of foreign ambassadors.
Unsourced reports are circulating, meanwhile, that British banks have frozen US$1.6 billion in funds belonging to Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the supreme leader. This supposed affront is cited as another reason for displeasure with Britain in high places.
Saner voices can still be heard above the din.
“Agitating, and [making] insulting propaganda against the people, who have constantly moved independently, and linking their peaceful actions to foreigners, is a symbol of wrong policies which increase the gap between the people and the government,” reformist former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami warned at the weekend. But in its dash for foreign scapegoats, nobody in the regime is listening.
Through their aggressive actions and rhetoric in the past week, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad have gone a long way to making Netanyahu’s case for him. Speaking on US television, the Israeli prime minister didn’t quite say “I told you so.” He didn’t have to.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
RSS