An Unintelligent Intervention

Before Donald Trump launched his illegal attack on Iran, Sir John Sawers, former head of MI6, popped up on the Today programme to prod him into action. MI6 has a grim history in Iran. Alongside the CIA, the UK masterminded the 1953 coup d’état against the Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, installing instead our own puppet leader, extinguishing democracy, and paving the way for the Ayatollahs.

The second problem is Sawers’ personal role in sabotaging a nuclear deal with Iran. As I described in my book Why the West is Wrong About Nuclear Iran, Sawers snubbed a well-meant and serious offer from Javad Zarif, the chief Iranian negotiator who went on to become Foreign Minister. The snub was delivered at the Quai d’Orsay in 2005. Sawers was acting on the orders of US President George W Bush. As he explained to Seyed Hossein Mousavian, spokesman for the Iranian negotiation: “Washington would never tolerate the operation of even one centrifuge in Iran.” It turned my stomach listening to Sawers, the British intelligence officer who trashed an Iranian nuclear deal on the instruction of the United States, supporting an American bombing raid on Iran.

There’s a third problem with Sawers’ intervention. The events of 2002-2003, when Tony Blair persuaded MI6 to produce a dossier containing fabricated information making a case for the illegal invasion of Iraq, reminded us that MI6 is unwise to act as propagandist for war.

When Sawers, a fairly recent MI6 chief, went on the airwaves in support of the Trump bombing attacks, he was seen as acting as a spokesman for MI6.