Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Iran

New Prime Minister Rishi Sunak offers hope that the UK will consider an Iran policy beyond the futile JCPOA quest.  Just three months ago – during the last PM race – I wrote that much of Sunak’s foreign policy outlook beyond Brexit was “not in evidence.”  Iran specifically was not on his radar but that changed after the horrific attack on British writer Salman Rushdie on August 12.  Days later, Sunak told the Telegraph:

We urgently need a new, strengthened deal and much tougher sanctions, and if we can’t get results then we have to start asking whether the JCPOA is at a dead end. The brutal stabbing of Salman Rushdie should be a wake-up call for the West, and Iran’s reaction to the attack strengthens the case for proscribing the IRGC.

These are significant comments in the British context. Since the Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2015, none of four successive Prime Ministers dared violate the JCPOA commitment taboo. Nor the seven Foreign Secretaries spanning the period (Dominic Raab once said the deal was “in doubt” due to Iranian outrages but ultimately supported the deal).  Sunak comes closest with his ‘dead end’ reference.

Additional IRGC sanctions would be less disruptive of UK norms at this moment.  On October 10, the UK sanctioned Iran’s ‘Morality Police’ in the wake of the regime crackdown on protests sparked by the murder of Mahsa (Jina) Amini last month. This was followed on October 20 by sanctions on an Iranian company for supplying drones to Russian forces, killing four Ukrainian civilians last Monday.  After years of inertia, a quickfire double-round of sanctions feels like an unshackling.

Like Canada, the UK is vulnerable to regime infiltration, soft power, and even financial influence via terror-tied banks. The FCDO could thus match Ottawa’s recent decision to beef up anti-IRGC legislation, which bans some 10,000 members from entry while falling short of a full designation.

(Credit: Pippa Fowles / No10 Downing Street)

On these two big issues, the new PM would do well to revisit the parliamentary report published in February last year, “No Prosperity Without Justice: the UK’s Relationship With Iran.”  It calls for replacing – not revising – the JCPOA, a “shell of an agreement,” and it calls for designating the IRGC in its entirety, “a natural next step in response to the IRGC’s bankrolling and bolstering of terrorism.”  Both recommendations would easily fit with Sunak’s remarks in August, which suggest he is attuned to the broad Iran challenge.  

However, he has so far kept his own counsel on the protests, which show little sign of waning.  He must clarify, in particular, whether he believes the chants of “Death to the Dictator” reflect Iranians’ desire to “reform” the system or if they signal something far more profound.  Likewise, he must soon explain his vision on confronting Iran’s increasing role in Ukraine, as reports emerge that IRGC personnel are now operating in Belarus in support of Russia. 

In partnership with his Foreign Secretary – likely Penny Mordaunt, Dominic Raab, or incumbent James Cleverly, to be announced today – Sunak must channel those brief but apt comments to quickly form the basis of a new strategy that goes beyond Britain’s JCPOA-obsessive malaise.