Britain should embrace stringent sanctions against Iran in alignment with Donald Trump’s anticipated policy, according to a significant new report by Lord Mark Sedwill, the UK’s former top civil servant. The recommendation comes at a time when relations between the West and Iran are at a critical stage.
It is not up to the West, in general, or the UK, in particular, to decide who should rule Iran. That is for the Iranian people. But we can make clear that the right choice will bring benefits just as the wrong one will bring more of the same’ Sedwill, foreword, for a Policy Exchange publication.
The report appears as Tehran is poised for sensitive negotiations with the European powers over its nuclear enrichment activities. Sedwill, who previously served as both cabinet secretary and national security adviser, advocates for a robust approach:
“While aligning with Trump II’s maximum pressure against this regime, the UK should also insist that a successor, willing to liberalise at home and behave responsibly abroad, can earn a respectable place in the international community.”
The timing is significant as well because three EU countries – Britain, France and Germany begin a second round of negotiations with Iran to discuss possible frameworks of nuclear containment.
These discussions occur against the backdrop of Trump’s 2018 withdrawal from the previous nuclear agreement and Iran’s continued uranium enrichment activities.
Sedwill’s analysis of Iran’s current situation is particularly stark: The regime is not dead but it is still a threat. It terrorises our regional partners, destabilises global energy and shipping routes, plans assassinations on British soil and is complicit in Russia’s sacking of both Ukraine and 75 years of European peace.”
The report indicates the internal problems of Iran as a country; focusing on the acute economic problems and rising social unrest. We do know that the Iranian people, whenever they are offered the minimum of a choice, will select the least regressive/prescriptively progressive candidate on offer. Their tolerance of the regime’s excesses is wearing thin,” Sedwill observes.
The Policy Exchange document, co-authored by former UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia Sir John Jenkins, takes a particularly hawkish stance, stating that ;
“It should be made clear that the UK would endorse attacks on the Iranian nuclear programme should evidence arise that Iran is attempting a nuclear ‘breakout’ irrespective of the extent of UK participation in such operations.”
The recommendations come as Europe is poised to bring back full UN sanctions against Tehran by October over the breach of the 2015 nuclear deal through Tehran’s continued enrichment of uranium.
