Iran

Tehran does not welcome pedestrians. It is eight o’clock on a July evening and the sun has plunged out of the air with alarming speed; the sky is the colour of wine, and the air is thick with the scent of heat and petrol. I have long forgotten where we are going. Dust-coloured buildings spill out to the horizon, many of them protected by barbed-wire gates. In this part of town it is so unusual for people to walk on the streets at night — I am told that only fools and prostitutes do so — that the pavements are unlit, and we rely on the rippling glow of the

At the start of this week I hinted that the negotiations which went on in Geneva last weekend were not a meeting of equals. On one side were the Iranians, representing the clear wishes of their unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini. On the other were the P5+1 countries joined by the unelected Supreme Baroness Catherine Ashton whose primary desire seemed to be to just declare some deal – any deal. So a wretched deal was done which has initiated the fraying and eventual collapse of sanctions, and Baroness Ashton and Secretary Kerry hugged each other for the cameras and got their moment of feeling like world saviours. Now it is business

Much though I like and respect Douglas Murray, I reckon he and other Ayatollohaphobes* are wrong about the deal struck with Iran. If Iran’s willingness to negotiate was evidence that sanctions were working, rather than a sudden flowering of the ‘let us all now be frenz’ spirit in Tehran – then the sanctions have surely done their job. That was the point of them. This seems to me so straight forward as to be almost tautological. There are risks with any deal, risks that the mullahs may indeed renege. But it is hard to argue on a basis of fact, rather than prejudice, even if you are living in Tel

The Commons was in congratulatory mode this afternoon when William Hague gave his statement on the deal with Iran. Baroness Ashton, not familiar with heaps of praise falling on her, came in for congratulations from across the House, particularly from Hague and Douglas Alexander. Both men also agreed that this deal is the first step towards what Alexander called ‘that more difficult and complex agreement’ that will secure long-term stability in the region. listen to ‘William Hague’s statement on the Iran nuclear deal: ‘This is an important, necessary and completely justified step’’ on Audioboo

President Obama’s flagship foreign policy of ‘leading from behind’ has had some surprising consequences. Not least among them is that France now appears to be leading the free world. During the current set of negotiations in Geneva between Iran and the P5+1 countries, America, Russia, Britain, China and Germany seem eager to declare a breakthrough. Iran is seeking an alleviation of the tough international sanctions against it and the right to continue what it calls its ‘peaceful’ nuclear programme. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has warned of Iran benefiting from ‘the deal of the century’. Last weekend it took the government of François Hollande to call time on this.

Is Iran serious? That is the question everybody has been asking for the last 24 hours since the new Iranian President went to the UN in New York and gave an interview to CNN. A colossal outbreak of wilful optimism has followed from policy makers, ex-policy makers and media. This has been based largely on the fact that an Iranian President may have just acknowledged that the Holocaust of European Jewry occurred. Well huzzah. For what it’s worth, President Rouhani didn’t quite say that. In the CNN interview he said that it was the job of historians to look at such things. And to the extent that he acknowledged that a

Say this for George Galloway: every time you think he cannot sink any lower he finds new ways to surprise you. His latest contribution to Press TV, Iran’s propaganda station, speaks for itself. Parody is pointless. Given his history and his paymasters, we would expect him to defend the Assad regime in Syria. Even so, under-estimating his ability to sniff out the true villains is never sensible. Here’s his “analysis” of the use of chemical weapons in Syria: “If there’s been any use of nerve gas it’s the rebels that used it. […] If there has been a use of chemical weapons it was al-Qaeda who used chemical weapons. Who

The installation of Hassan Rouhani as President of Iran next month heralds a new chapter for the country. It is clear that he was elected not only because it was felt — both at the highest levels and by the people — that he was best placed to negotiate with the West on Iran’s nuclear programme but also because he was the candidate most likely to appeal to reform-hungry Iranians. Rouhani is a protégé of the former president Muhammed Khatami, with whom I have had the chance to work. When he was President, I spent a whole day with him meeting political, civil society and religious leaders. Visiting him in

It’s exactly ten years since Iranian dissidents first blew the cover of a secret uranium-enrichment facility under a mountain at Natanz, in a bleak stretch of desert near Isfahan. Ever since, relations between Israel and Iran have headed inexorably towards war. Israeli leaders have insisted that they are ready to launch a military strike — unilaterally if necessary — against Iran if the uranium enrichment continues. Iranian leaders, liberals and hardliners alike, have been equally adamant that the centrifuges will continue to spin. For Israeli hawks like prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the question has been not whether to strike Iran, but when. But in the past few weeks, the diplomatic