Charlie Gammell is a historian and former diplomat who was on the Iran desk at the Foreign Office.
‘Help is on the way,’ promised Donald Trump to the people of Iran defying the Islamic Republic. In the same social media post, the US President, characteristically light on detail, also urged Iranian protestors to take over the institutions of the Islamic Republic (presumably by force) and to keep a note of the names and
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Spectator contributor and author Charlie Gammell and Freddy Gray discuss what is really happening as protests play out on the streets of Iran. They discuss imams turning on the Shah, whether Trump could actually be seeking talks rather than war, what the Middle East wants from a fractured Iran, and what issues could arise from
‘If they shut down the internet, you know it’s serious,’ said a well-informed observer of Iran to me yesterday morning. The internet blackout came yesterday afternoon – along with over a million Iranians marching in streets across the country. Strikes are continuing in bazaars and the cries for the end of the Islamic Republic are
On the afternoon of the 28 December in a Tehran electronics bazaar, shopkeepers (known as bazaaris) shuttered their shops and walked out, outraged at a planned gas price rise and crippled at the continuing slide in the value of the Iranian currency and the government’s powerlessness to shepherd Iran’s economy towards something better than corruption,
It was bound to happen. Leaving aside, for the moment, the burning question of whether the US strikes on Iran will have set back Tehran’s nuclear programme by weeks, months or years, this moment feels in many ways like an apotheosis of sorts. The Omega (or perhaps Alpha depending on your sense of ontology) of US attempts at talking
The world is watching Donald Trump to see if he will give his military the green light to use one of America’s most deadly weapons, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (Mop), to destroy Iran’s underground nuclear facilities at Fordow. As a man with a seemingly inexhaustible need for attention, this is a gratifying position for him
In October 2023, the mullahs of the Islamic Republic could look within Iran’s borders, and beyond, and be content with the worlds they had created. After all, they had weathered the storm of the Women, Life, Freedom protests by terrorising their own people, and could rest assured in the strength of their proxy networks, feared
Amongst a swirl of pronouncements from Tel Aviv, Washington and Tehran – and against the dramatic backdrop of an Iranian TV presenter’s rather tired fire and fury being interrupted by the sound of bombs – Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that Israel is close to “victory.” Yet despite Ayatollah Khamenei being hidden in a bunker, experiencing regular panic
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Relations between Iran and Israel are deteriorating rapidly, with comparisons being drawn to Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be advocating for regime change in Tehran, reportedly encouraging the United States to take military action. Donald Trump, who previously came close to authorising a strike, is
The clue is in the name of Israel’s operation. ‘Operation Rising Lion’ is a direct reference to the Pahlavi flag used by Iran before the Islamic revolution, which shows a lion standing proud against the backdrop of a glowing orb, the sun. In Persian this is called the ‘Shir-e Khorshid.’ For many years now, Netanyahu has sought to speak directly
‘They are scared. You can hear it in their voices,’ someone wrote to me on Friday from Tehran. And in this case the ‘they’ is what’s left of the Iranian military and intelligence commanders. And perhaps Khamenei, too (strikingly absent from the air waves since a speech on Friday morning). Israel’s strikes, yet another show
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President Trump is an America Firster, but he has an undeniable affinity for the Arab world. He would have made a good sheik: he doesn’t drink, he loves developing flashy properties to show off his power and wealth, and he’s brutally realistic about the role of oil (and other commodities) in world politics. On his
This weekend in Muscat, US and Iranian diplomats held a fourth round of talks, continuing their efforts to find a way through an impasse that has bedevilled US-Iran relations since 1979. By all accounts, the negotiations so far have been a mixed bag. The overall picture remains slightly confused, particularly around the issue of uranium
As the world reels from the chaos of a geopolitical order turned upside down, and as we wait to see if America really will invade Canada, spare a thought for Tehran. Losing one ally in the space of 12 months (Hezbollah) is bad enough. But losing two (Syria) is downright terrible. And then add to
To talk or not to talk? This is the slogan that’s doing the rounds among the Islamic Republic of Iran’s politicians, hardliner and reformist. Donald Trump has made it clear he hopes that Iran might abandon their nuclear programme through a deal with Washington. This will, the President said, lessen the need for Israeli bombs
There are unintended consequences, and then there are unintended consequences. What we are seeing in Syria, as Aleppo and Hama fall (and Homs braces itself) to a coalition of anti-regime forces whose DNA is to be found in al-Qaeda et al, is an unintended consequence of Israel’s bombardment in Syria of Iran-funded pro-Assad groups, and
The mood music from Tehran regarding Donald Trump’s election victory was a mixture of ‘don’t care,’ and ‘very much do care.’ Regime insiders remember only too well the toll Trump’s last four years took on their state; Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Qassem Soleimani killed; economy shattered; regionally isolated due to Israeli-Arab normalisation. Trump
In 2012, as the Islamic Republic showed signs of buckling under the weight of US and EU sanctions, Senator John Kerry spearheaded a series of backchannel meetings with his Iranian counterparts to begin exploring the deal that became the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an arms reduction agreement between Iran and western nations in
As Israeli troops make incursions into southern Lebanon, in the wake of recent successful aerial and covert campaigns against Hezbollah, Tel Aviv appears ascendant. Iran, by contrast, seems on the back foot, at odds with its proxies and divided internally as to the way forward. Israel’s response to Iran’s missile strikes, and the West’s ability to check Israel’s actions to prevent all-out
Sun Tzu, the Chinese military strategist writing roughly 2,500 years ago, said that ‘Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.’ As we stand on the precipice of a truly frightening regional conflict, which pits a technologically advanced Israel and its allies against Iran and its allies in
