Espionage-Led Diplomacy

John Sawers, the chairman of Britain's spying apparatus MI6, has conceded a few days ago that his agency was carrying out espionage operations in Iran.


Thu Nov 4, 2010 1:20PM
Courtesy Of "Press TV"

Sawers addressed a live televised gathering of academics, officials and editors in London on October 28 in the first public speech by a serving UK espionage chief.

“Diplomacy alone would not be enough to disrupt Iran's nuclear program”, the MI6 chief claimed, disclosing the 'espionage-led diplomacy' strategy the West is currently pursuing vis-à-vis Iran and its nuclear issue.

"Stopping nuclear proliferation cannot be addressed purely by conventional diplomacy. We need intelligence-led operations to make it more difficult for countries such as Iran to develop nuclear weapons," he added.

Sawers went on to say that "the revelations around Iran's secret enrichment site at Qom were an intelligence success. They led to diplomatic pressure on Iran intensifying, with tougher US and EU sanctions.”

Sawers' hostile and non-diplomatic allegations could only be translated as “defying diplomacy and internationally admitted frameworks such as International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA) rules and regulations.”

Such an approach had also been learned from previous experiences of the Islamic Republic of Iran in occasions including Western countries' baseless allegations such as the fake story of an Iranian official's stolen Laptop, and the abduction of Iranian researcher Shahram Amiri and pressuring him to affirm US officials' claims and alleged studies.

On the other hand, Sawers' remarks are in clear contradiction with the daily calls from Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, and other members of the 5+1 group for resolving the dispute over Iran's nuclear program.

The 5+1 group, consisting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council including the US, Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany, have long been involved in talks over Iran's nuclear program.

Meanwhile, both Sawers and Ashton are the UK nationals and their country as an important member of the 5+1 group would have a better say in future negotiations between Iran and the West.

Therefore, the MI6 chief seems to be preparing the ground for the 5+1 group to put an end to the role of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the IAEA fact-finding inspections, so that the international community could only refer to the findings of spying agencies of certain western countries as an official document for accusing a country of conducting clandestine nuclear program.

Obviously, spying agencies are not allowed to release their documents on security concerns or to reveal the alleged documents to the accused country or any other parties involved.

If this analysis is true, then it could be understood that the UK government has deceitfully planned for the time when Iran-G5+1 possible future talks collapse.