Free Republic

This past week these pages have been filled with daily meditations on the British embrace of loserdom - Boris Johnson, James Delingpole, our friends in the leader pen opposite. I'm not sure I'd pass Norman Tebbit's cricket test myself, but, if I did, I'd be as upset as the rest of the Telegraph types at Accrington Stanley losing in straight sets or Annabel Croft blowing the penalty shoot-out. Hard to take, year in, year out. None the less, it seems to me this morbid obsession with the national loser fetish obscured the really big British defeat - to Iran, in...

British Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Mike O’Brien has said that the British government would not take part in any military intervention in Iran or Syria. He was talking to newsmen, after delivering keynote speech on "Pakistan and Britain - A Developing Relationship", arranged by the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations, Economic Affairs and Law (KCFREAL) at the FTC Auditorium, here on Thursday. Describing Iran as an emerging democracy, he said that the UK was working alongside the Iranian government for the country’s growth. He said his country also had no plans to go after Syria. He...

Britain Rebukes Iran Over Embassy Gunfire September 09, 2003 The Guardian Staff and Agencies Britain "protested strongly" to Iran today for not protecting its embassy in Tehran, after shots were fired at the building for the second time in a week. Diplomats said three or four shots were fired at the embassy overnight. In a similar incident last Wednesday, the embassy was temporarily closed after shots were fired from a passing motorbike. "We've protested strongly to the Iranian ministry of foreign affairs that security precautions taken by the Iranian authorities after last week's shooting did not prevent this further incident,"...

Last Straw :The British Should Not Be Appeasing the Mullahs of Iran. By Amir Taheri The National Review Online 6.30.2003 For over 150 years many Iranians have believed that nothing can happen in politics anywhere without the British having a hand. One of the most popular proverbs in Persian reads: All is the work of the English! (Kar kar englisi hast!) Try telling the average Persian that long gone are the days when the British Empire, often using gunboat diplomacy, could impose its wishes on weaker nations. They believe that even today, Britain, although a middle-sized power in military and...

Thousands more protest in main US and European cities By SMCCDI (Information Service) Jul 9, 2003, 4:43pm Thousands more of members of Iranian Diaspora gathered, today, in order to protest against the illegitimate rule of the Islamic republic regime and to ask for its change into a Secular regime. Thousands of Iranians living in main US gathered in cities, such as, Washington DC, New York, Austin, Chicago, Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas, Seattle and San Francisco; An thousands of others, living in Europe gathered in cities, such as, Paris, Hamburg, Stockholm, London, Den Hague, Oslo, Brussels and Barcelona. All of them asked...

Blair Comments Outrage Iran June 25, 2003 BBC News Jim Muir The British Ambassador in Tehran, Richard Dalton, has been called in by the Iranian foreign ministry to receive a verbal protest over remarks made in the UK Parliament yesterday by Prime Minister Tony Blair. Mr Blair said that the recent anti-regime demonstrations in Iran deserved Britain's support. Iranian officials have condemned the remarks as an interference in Iran's internal affairs and they have accused Mr Blair of deceiving his own public opinion over the war in neighbouring Iraq. In a meeting which British embassy sources describe as "uncomfortable", Mr...