The United Nations nuclear watchdog is packing its bags for Tehran once more, a ritual that has all the suspense of a West End farce. Rafael Grossi, the IAEA’s top man, will inspect Iranian sites after a deal struck with the new administration of Masoud Pezeshkian. Downing Street, ever the schoolmarm, demands ‘full compliance’ as if browbeating a recalcitrant pupil will yield results. But let’s not pretend this is about non-proliferation. This is about face-saving after the West’s grand bargain with the Islamic Republic collapsed into a heap of broken promises and centrifuges.
The timing is exquisite. Just as the Iran war deal – a euphemism for a temporary truce that allows everyone to pretend they’ve won – is signed, the UK sticks its oar in. It’s a classic piece of British diplomacy: hectoring from the sidelines while the real players cut deals. The Victorians would have blushed. The Romans, well, they’d have sent legions. We send sternly worded statements.
Grossi’s visit is a sop to the West’s conscience. We want to believe that inspections mean control. They don’t. They mean we have a ringside seat as Iran inches closer to a bomb, all while we argue about enrichment levels. It’s the intellectual decadence of our age: we mistake process for progress. Every inspection is a step towards legitimising the regime’s nuclear programme, not curtailing it. The mullahs laugh all the way to the centrifuge.
Downing Street demands ‘full compliance’. With what, precisely? The JCPOA is a zombie treaty, killed by Trump, then resurrected by Biden, only to shuffle along in a state of undeath. Iran has violated every major provision. And yet we demand full compliance as if Iran cares about international law. They care about one thing: survival. And they know the West is too frightfully decent to do anything about it.
The war deal itself is a masterstroke of cynical statecraft. It allows Iran to claim it has secured peace, while the West can claim it has avoided war. Both sides get a trophy. Meanwhile, Iran’s proxies in Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria continue their work. The real war is fought by others, on the cheap, while diplomats preen in Vienna or London.
I suspect the British elite have a soft spot for this game. It reminds them of the old days, when they could shuffle papers and pretend to manage the empire. Now they manage decline. The insistence on ‘full compliance’ is a symptom of a nation that cannot bear to admit its irrelevance. We demand, but we do not enforce. We posture, but we do not act.
History will judge this era harshly. The fall of Rome was hastened by a similar inability to confront threats directly. We paper over cracks with agreements and inspections, while the barbarians – or in this case, the mullahs – build their weapons. Grossi will return from Tehran with a report full of caveats. Downing Street will express deep concern. And the centrifuges will spin on.
The only question is whether we shall wake up one morning to find that Iran has crossed the threshold. By then, it will be too late to demand anything. But we shall do it anyway, because that is what we do. We demand compliance from those who have no intention of complying. It is a farce, but it is our farce. And we shall clap politely until the curtain falls.
