Yesterday’s post listed three books about Iran – the country which the US has just bombed - with Israeli agents now apparently In full charge of US foreign policy.
Jack Straw (2019) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Bliar and Gordon Brown. He was Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001, and Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006 under Blair. He was a MP for Blackburn from 1979 to 2015 and shares a birthday with me – being 4 years younger. I had not realised his affection for Iran – expressed in this book of his The English Job – understanding Iran and why it distrusts Britain (2019)
During my time as British Foreign Secretary, I became fascinated, bewitched, infuriated, perplexed by this singular country. I strove to understand it better, and have done ever since. In 2001, I was the first British Foreign Secretary to visit the country after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and have visited it many times since. I count many Iranians as my friends.
The purpose of this book is to provide some illumination of this country. As I show, Britain’s entanglement with Iran goes back five centuries – far longer than most people may realise. Iran has a powerful sense of exceptionalism, and of its national identity. It is Muslim, but never Arab, Shi’a not Sunni. And it has the most extraordinary system of government, in which factions as disparate as the Tea Party and Bernie Sanders’s left-wing Democrats are in office at the same time. I have great affection for its people, notwithstanding the unwelcome experiences to which my wife and I, with two close friends, were subject in October 2015
And, most ubiquitous of all, ‘Kar kareh ingilisee hast’ – ‘The job is always an English job’ – hence the title of this book.
Further ViewingThe discussions on the “Rest is Politics” about the war on Iran are well worth listening to for the light they throw on motives and interests – particularly the contextual analyses provided by Rory Stewart – the latest can be seen on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXPZR7MPAb8 Anthony Bourdain travels to Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB4UE3Vo6jY
Rick Stevens visits Iran https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f16pIXZMio
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