Failed Tory chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was on Good Morning Britain on 12 January speaking patronisingly about Iran’s protests. Mirror journalist Kevin Maguire held him to account brilliantly, nailing the reasons why the views of establishment politicians aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
commenting on the latest spate of protests, Maguire insisted that people in Iran are:
very aware of their history, and they recall — in 1953 — when the UK and the US organised a coup that toppled a democratically elected prime minister [Mohammad Mossadegh].
And stressing the hypocrisy of the West calling out Iran while cosying up to countless dictators, he added:
We have no ethical foreign policy.
I hope democracy wins in Iran, but we back vile authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia or Bahrain.
Maguire: “We have no ethical foreign policy. I hope democracy wins in Iran but we back vile authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain”
Kwarteng: you don’t know what you’re talking about
Maguire: just because you went to Eton you think you can patronise people. #GMB pic.twitter.com/ZKimf9Hx3A
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) January 12, 2026
Saudi Arabia, of course, carried out a record-breaking number of executions in 2025. Yet it remains a close Western ally. Israel has murdered over 20,000 children during its genocide in Gaza since 2023. But again, the US and UK continue to roll out the red carpet for war criminals.
Iran’s government absolutely has its issues. But if we truly want to understand them, we need to consider some key points from both the distant and recent past.
Not-so-distant past: Coup, devastation, US terror
Just a few years after the Second World War, the handover from old European empires to the new US empire was in full swing. But an independent government in Iran sought to nationalise the country’s oil industry. So, the UK and US conspired to get rid of it, setting off a chain of events whose effects we still feeling today:
- The CIA and MI6 orchestrated the overthrow of Iran’s democratic government in 1953. They worked to turn religious forces against it to help achieve this. They propped up the pro-Western, pro-Israel monarchy (and its brutal secret police, Savak) that ruled until 1979.
- Religious forces soon took over the people’s revolution that toppled the monarchy. The CIA and MI6 helped by passing a list of Iranian left-wingers to the new regime in 1983. It promptly executed many of them.
- In 1980, Iraq’s then-prime minister, Saddam Hussein entered into a war with Iran. Western states sold equipment to Iran’s neighbour despite its indiscriminate use of chemical weapons. At the same time, the US also secretly sold arms to Iran to divert funds to far-right paramilitaries in Nicaragua — otherwise known as the Iran-contra affair. The conflict was devastating, killing over a million people across both sides.
- In 1988, the US downed an Iranian commercial flight in the Persian Gulf. This killed 290 civilians, including 66 children. That seems to be roughly 290 more than the total number of US civilians that Iran has ever killed.
- Since at least the early 1990s, Israel has treated Iran as a top enemy. War criminal Benjamin Netanyahu in particular has repeatedly — and incorrectly — claimed since then that Iran would ‘soon have nuclear weapons‘. To this day, Israel remains the only country in the region to possess such weapons.
Recent past: Sanctions, Trump, & Israel
Iran’s regime survived into the post-Cold War world. And sanctions became the main tool for Western pressure. Years of sanctions have been devastating for the Iranian people, reportedly costing over a trillion dollars. They’ve also contributed to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.
There have been many opportunities for diplomacy, as the opening under the deal with Barack Obama showed. But Donald Trump consciously trashed that and ramped up tensions again instead. This stance only led to more distrust towards the US in Iran.
Amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the apartheid state launched an unprovoked attack on Iran. It then pushed fake content online to lobby for the return of Iran’s monarchy. And as economic strife in Iran deepens, Israel is egging on protests.
Hackers allege that there are Mossad agents in the country, though the exact number has not been determined. This has also been acknowledged by some Israeli politicians. And with the US threatening Iran, and having recently abducted the leader of another country, experts concede that the external threats to Iran’s government are “undeniable“.
“No ethical foreign policy”
US and UK foreign policies don’t focus on ethics. They’re not about democracy, freedom, or human rights. The distant and recent past show that. They routinely back — or commit — unethical behaviour abroad. They oppose it only when it suits them.
Iran’s government absolutely deserves criticism on women’s rights, torture, workers’ rights, freedom of speech, executions, and many other issues. It is no progressive champion. That’s why many ordinary people in Iran are angry (rightly so), and protesting.
But until Western nations show consistent opposition to human rights abuses everywhere, not just in countries outside their sphere of influence, they can shove their patronising words and fake outrage where the sun doesn’t shine. Because we’re not buying it.
Featured image via the Canary/Unsplash
By Ed Sykes
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