How MI6 Laid Iran War's Foundations

All my investigations are free to read, thanks to the enormous generosity of my readers. Independent journalism nonetheless requires investment, so if you value this article or any others, please consider sharing, or even becoming a paid subscriber. Your support is always gratefully received, and will never be forgotten. To buy me a coffee or two, please click this link.

In the weeks leading up to the Empire’s catastrophic decision to instigate war against Iran, negotiations between Tehran and Washington were intensively ongoing. The Islamic Republic was ordered to accept sharp limits on her ability to develop ballistic and hypersonic missiles, and agree to never stockpile enriched uranium. The former stipulation was a significant sticking point, for such restrictions would gravely undermine Iran’s national and regional security architecture. However, Tehran was intensely relaxed about ceding the latter.

On February 28th, mere hours before the US and Israel unleashed hell on Iran from the skies, it was widely reported Tehran had undertaken to “ensure forever” she would not develop or possess nuclear weapons. This pledge was entirely in keeping with consistent messaging from senior Islamic Republic officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, assassinated that same day in Judeo-American airstrikes on his official residence. From the mid-1990s onwards, Khamenei had consistently endorsed a fatwa against the acquisition, development and use of nuclear weapons.

Still, concerns about Iran’s supposed nuke ambitions have lain at the core of direly ever-worsening relations between Iran and the US since May 2018, when Donald Trump shredded the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action mediated with Tehran by Washington three years earlier. Under its terms, the Islamic Republic granted the International Atomic Energy Agency virtually unhindered access to its secret nuclear complexes, in return for sanctions relief. The deal was torn up despite the IAEA consistently certifying Iran’s compliance.

Israeli airstrikes on Tehran

The JCPOA was inked following a period in which public and state attitudes across the West - and its vassal states - towards the Islamic Republic became highly belligerent. From 2006 onwards, governments and international bodies - including the EU and UN - one by one imposed ravaging sanctions against Tehran, devastating its economy, influence, and standing. Within six years, Iran was the most sanctioned country on Earth. Ever since, these excessively punitive measures have produced soaring inflation, unemployment, preventable deaths, and other egregious ills.

As pressure on Iran ratcheted, numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions demanded Tehran cease enriching uranium, and cooperate with the IAEA. In November 2011, the Association expressed “serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.” Throughout this period too, mainstream media became awash with scaremongering reports the Islamic Republic would imminently develop nukes, if she hadn’t done so already. Israel, and the wider West, were purportedly under urgent threat.

This demonising narrative was relentlessly disseminated by senior Western government officials, military and spying apparatchiks, think tank pundits, and ‘journalists’. Yet, no evidence was ever presented to support the bombastic charge. The grim truth is Iran’s alleged nuclear desires are a fable, cooked up by British intelligence. What follows is the sordid tale of how MI6 operatives infiltrated ostensibly independent international institutions, then manipulated them and Western governments, ultimately leading the world to perilous, potentially nuclear conflict.

‘Information Operations’

In October 2008, The Daily Telegraph reported on a leaked assessment of then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama, prepared by London’s ambassador to Washington. While identifying many areas of consensus, it foresaw a “potential clash” between Downing Street and an impending Obama administration, over Iran “his desire for ‘unconditional’ dialogue with Iran.” This was at odds with Britain’s commitment to the UNSC’s “requirement of prior suspension of enrichment before the nuclear negotiations proper can begin.” It was thus necessary to change the future White House incumbent’s thinking.

Unbeknownst publicly, during this time MI6 was embroiled in a covert operation to “develop understanding” among foreign governments of the Islamic Republic’s apparent quest for nukes, and therefore “pressurise Iran to negotiate.” A leaked CV of Nicholas Langman, longtime British intelligence dark arts specialist and head of MI6’s Iran Department 2006 - 2008, boasts how he “generated confidence” in its assessment Tehran secretly had a dedicated program to develop nuclear weapons among “European, US and Middle Eastern agencies.”

Then, from 2010 - 2012 Langman led an “inter-agency” effort to comprehensively infiltrate the IAEA, while “[building] highly effective and mutually supportive relations across government and with senior US, European, Middle and Far Eastern colleagues for strategy.” These dark handshakes with MI6 “enabled major diplomatic success [sic] of Iranian nuclear and sanctions agreement.” Britain’s central, clandestine role in corralling global public and political opinion behind the fraud Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons capabilities, and producing all that followed, has never been acknowledged by the mainstream media.

Nonetheless, Langman’s intimate involvement in the con is deserving of intense scrutiny. He holds the dubious distinction of being publicly ‘burned’ as an MI6 operative on two separate occasions. First, in 2001 it was revealed Langman had been active in Paris at the time of Princess Diana’s fatal car crash in the city on August 31st 1997, and was charged with conducting “information operations” to deflect widespread public speculation British intelligence was responsible for her death.

Then, in 2005 he was exposed by Greek authorities for overseeing the abduction and torture of 28 Pakistani guestworkers in Athens, suspected of having contact with the individuals accused of perpetrating the 7/7 bombings in London that year. Langman moved straight from this post to running MI6’s Iran Department. That he wasn’t reprimanded over the Greek incident strongly suggests he enjoyed a high level of protection, and London approved of his vicious intelligence-gathering methods - known to invariably elicit false testimony from detainees.

Was MI6 ‘intelligence’ Tehran posed a global nuclear hazard the result of torture? Regardless, as forecast by London’s ambassador to the US, the Obama administration was during its first year in office formally committed to non-interference in the Islamic Republic’s affairs. This policy was enforced so stringently, a State Department official almost lost his job for endorsing protests in Tehran in June 2009. Evidently, Britain’s interventions with foreign partners and the IAEA were decisive in shifting the White House away from conciliation, and towards war.

‘No Return’

MI6’s black propaganda operation was most welcome to senior Zionist entity officials, in particular Benjamin Netanyahu. Ever since the early 1990s, Israel’s current Prime Minister had been publicly warning on a regular basis that Tehran was on the verge of acquiring nukes. He was widely mocked for crying wolf. British intelligence provided seemingly independent verification of Netanyahu’s bogus claims, and influenced Western states into adopting hostile stances on the Islamic Republic. This connivance was of enormous benefit to Tel Aviv.

Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the UN General Assembly with a ludicrous chart on Iran’s purported nuclear development, September 2012

In the decades since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has supported an ever-expanding and strengthening nexus of anti-Zionist Resistance forces across West Asia. This includes Palestine. The MI6-triggered sanctions significantly hampered Tehran’s ability to provide practical, material and financial assistance to these groups. They also severely truncated the Islamic Republic’s involvement in battling CIA and MI6-sponsored extremist proxy forces and outright civil wars in neighbouring Iraq and Syria, over the past two decades.

Not coincidentally, following the historically devastating sanctions being imposed on Iran, Israeli assaults on the Occupied Territories and their populations, and Zionist theft of Palestinian lands and property, ratcheted significantly. With opposition weakened, the slow motion genocide of Gaza inexorably gathered pace, ultimately leading to Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7th. With Gaza now flattened and ripe for Zionist seizure, Tel Aviv is preparing to commit a second Holocaust in the West Bank. Lawmakers in the Knesset have passed legislation facilitating its formal annexation.

A fantastical desire to neutralise Iran outright before moving in on the West Bank may lie behind the conflict waged since February 28th, with the spectre of nuclear weapons an ideal cover. Israel justified its calamitous 12 Day War on an intelligence dossier, which concluded the Islamic Republic had reached the “point of no return” in acquiring nukes. Its findings relied heavily on a May 2025 IAEA report that provided zero fresh information, but concluded Tehran supposedly maintained “undeclared nuclear material” until the early 2000s.

However, London has reasons of her own for seeking to subjugate Iran. Nationalisation of the country’s vast oil reserves by elected leader Mohammad Mossadeq in May 1951 crippled British Petroleum’s vast profits locally, placing Britain on a war footing with Tehran. Mossadeq was unseated in an MI6-orchestrated coup two years later, leading to the brutal reign of Shah Pahlavi, who presided over a highly pliant Anglo-American colony. The Islamic Revolution sent Pahlavi fleeing in 1979, and relations with London have been largely sour since.

The US-led War On Terror was heavily influenced by British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s rabidly interventionist perspectives, which discounted any and all considerations of international law. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Blair privately wrote to President George W. Bush, urging him to exploit “maximum” global sympathy produced by 9/11 to launch military interventions across West Asia. The first two targets on the list were Afghanistan and Iraq, both former British imperial holdings.

Were it not for the Empire getting so ruinously bogged down and overstretched in the War On Terror’s initial phases, Iran - which is sandwiched between Afghanistan and Iraq - would likely have been targeted for regime change and occupation by Anglo-American forces following those two conflicts. Today, an invasion of the Islamic Republic seems ominously close to fruition. However, Britain won’t allow the US to use her bases to strike Tehran, and wishes to stay out of the conflict she was instrumental in starting entirely.