Ditching diplomacy in Iran

by Gareth Smith January 3, 2012

written by Gareth Smith January 3, 2012

The historical parallels are dismal. Iran’s display of a captured United States Sentinel drone sparked painful memories, both of the shooting down of Gary Powers’ U2 spy plane over the Soviet Union in 1960 and of two American helicopters abandoned in an Iranian desert in 1980 while trying to free US hostages held in the Tehran embassy. Both examples speak of the failure — or abandonment — of diplomacy. At their best, diplomats are better than soldiers at defusing potentially dangerous situations. Hence the freezing of relations between Tehran and London should be seen as a new escalation in tension between Iran and the West. When students stormed the British embassy in November in protest at new sanctions, their actions were vindictive. “They even slashed the paintings,” a British foreign office employee, formerly based in Iran, told me. “What’s the point of that?” There is one painting I remember from

Gareth Smith

Gareth Smith was a distinguished journalist who reported from the Middle East for over two decades. He served as the Financial Times correspondent in Tehran, where he was the chief Iran correspondent from 2003, following his earlier role as Lebanon correspondent. Throughout his career, Smith covered Middle Eastern affairs for leading media outlets, including The Financial Times, The Guardian, and the BBC. He also contributed as an editor to Executive magazine. His work as a freelance journalist in the 1990s, focusing on the politics of Iran and Iraq, paved the way for his appointment at the FT. In 2009, he relocated to the west coast of Ireland, where he balanced freelance journalism with his passion for nature and the land.

Ditching diplomacy in Iran

You may also like