Britain needs to adopt a \u201ccoherent strategy\u201d in dealing with Iran by working more closely with Arab allies or risk becoming \u201cirrelevant\u201d on the diplomatic stage, a leading expert on the Tehran regime has said. <\/p>\n
Professor Ali Ansari has deeply criticised what he sees as the lacklustre approach taken by the UK government towards tackling the threat Iran poses. <\/p>\n
He warned in a paper for the Policy Exchange think tank that Britain\u2019s lack of credible military power had undermined its diplomatic influence, suggesting it risked turning a reliance on \u201cmasterly inactivity\u201d into \u201cexquisite irrelevance\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe application of soft power requires a measure of credible hard power to sustain, support and project,\u201d he wrote in British Policy and the Iran Crisis: Masterly Inactivity and the Marginalisation of Britain. <\/p>\n
He argued that successive governments had failed to develop a clear-headed long-term strategy towards a regime that poses an increasing threat to UK interests. <\/p>\n
Naming a current example, Prof Ansari told The National that the UK had to also take security measures \u201cvery seriously indeed\u201d to ensure freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. <\/p>\n
\u201cBritain needs to develop a coherent strategy with Arab partners and allies to ensure this and cannot absent itself from the problem,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor historical, geopolitical and economic reasons, while we may neglect Iran, Iran will not ignore us,\u201d Prof Ansari argued. \u201cThe Islamic Republic remains a growing threat to the British homeland with its continued interference in internal politics, attacks on dissidents as well as Jewish and Israeli targets.\u201d <\/p>\n
In 2024, Pouria Zeraati, a presenter for the London-based Persian-language channel Iran International, was stabbed in an attack that UK police linked to the Iranian regime. Possible links to Iran were also made in the torching of four Jewish community ambulances in Golders Green, London, in March this year, and an arson attack on a synagogue.<\/p>\n
In the report, the lecturer argued that British policy suffers from a \u201cstructural, institutional and ideational deficit\u201d which prevents the development of a strategy beyond short-term crisis management. The report calls for Britain to rebuild expertise on Iran within Whitehall and strengthen the defence of its Arab allies. <\/p>\n
The lecturer at St Andrew’s University stated that an absence of \u201chistorical literacy and cultural understanding\u201d among decision-makers has encouraged an over-reliance on legalism and technicalities, particularly with regard to Iran\u2019s nuclear programme. He levelled criticism at Britain’s reliance on the E3 diplomacy \u2013 the grouping of France, Germany and the UK \u2013 to try to put pressure on Iran after the collapse of the JCPOA nuclear deal. <\/p>\n
Prof Ansari concluded that Britain must recover the knowledge it once possessed, arguing that Iranian expertise within the Foreign Office had \u201catrophied\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf Britain has been respected and at times feared in Iran, it is because it has used its soft power with considerable dexterity and with a knowledge of its subject that has been regarded as peerless,\u201d he said. \u201cBritain has neglected what it once knew and must re-learn what it has forgotten.\u201d <\/p>\n
Arab strategy<\/b> <\/p>\n
In the paper, he accused Britain of failing to challenge Tehran\u2019s narratives, allowing the regime to shape the political debate. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe realities of authoritarianism are set aside in favour of a policy that seeks to bring Iran \u2018in from the cold\u2019 through accommodation and the avoidance of provocation,\u201d he wrote, arguing that this has emboldened rather than contained Tehran. <\/p>\n
The result was a \u201cstubborn status quo-ism\u201d, leaving Britain without either the will or the capability to tackle difficult issues. <\/p>\n
Tehran playboys<\/b><\/p>\n
Britain<\/a> must also go after senior Iranian figures<\/a> responsible for murder and torture by shutting down money transfers that enable their children to \u201clive like playboy millionaires in the West\u201d, the UK\u2019s former security minister<\/a> said. <\/p>\n