Simon Shercliff

UK-US on Iran

Today, when they met at the G8 in L'Aquila, our Prime Minister and President Obama discussed, amongst other things, Iran. While the US and UK governments still share great concern over Iran's nuclear programme, that subject obviously topped the billing. But in addition the UK has the immediate problem of dealing with the completely unacceptable behaviour of the Iranian regime in continuing to detain a member of the British Embassy in Tehran on the patently ridiculous charge of conspiring to fuel the violence in the immediate post-election aftermath. We are grateful for the firm solidarity that President Obama expressed with us on the issue.

Posted at 19:02 09 July 2009 by Simon Shercliff  |  Comments[2]

Solving the Iran Puzzle. Whose problem is it anyway?

Iran is a complex country. Everyone agrees with that. "We" (which at different times over the last few years has meant the UK, UK/France/Germany, Europe, the E3 plus US, the E3+3 - almost any combination of the membership of the international community) are all worried about the notion of Iran getting a nuclear weapon.

Rightly so - the prospects of yet another broadside being fired into the Non Proliferation Treaty (the only legitimate piece of global architechture out there which has a chance of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons technology); an arms race in the Middle East; and of course President Ahmadinejad's rhetorical blasts at Israel being backed by real weapons, are all highly toxic.

Yesterday I attended a symposium at the US Marine Corps University at Quantico where a wide-ranging presence attempted to address the Iran puzzle. Unsurprisingly there were no silver bullets discovered - if there were any out there, the huge numbers of highly qualified brains who have been thinking about this for years now would have found them. Instead we all concluded that the jigsaw puzzle must be solved by steady, sustained and comprehensive effort, using all the tools available to us. Some of those tools involve pressure, and some engagement. And a key element of the solution is turning the "we" into one team, all pulling in the same direction with both pressure and engagement.

Posted at 09:37 22 September 2008 by Simon Shercliff  |  Comments[1]