Tony Blair spreads lies, stokes unrest to push 'regime change' agenda in Iran

By Kit Klarenberg

On November 22, the London-based Tony Blair Institute for Global Change published a report, Protests and Polling Insights from the Streets of Iran: How Removal of the Hijab Became a Symbol of Regime Change, based on what it termed extensive polling of Iranian citizens.

Its headline findings were remarkably bold and evidently far-fetched - the overwhelming majority of Iranians are secularists, if not atheists outright, and seek the overthrow of their government.

That the report produced widespread coverage in the mainstream Western media was expected. Since the foreign-backed riots began in Iran in mid-September, Western reporters have given the “peaceful” unrest blanket coverage and widely forecast the imminent demise of the Islamic Republic.

This is while they have outrageously but expectedly ignored far larger pro-government demonstrations across Iran, and the widespread, incendiary violence of anti-state rioters which has resulted in the loss of many precious lives.

It was only inevitable then that no questions were asked about the organizations involved in producing the report, and whether they might have malign agendas in disseminating such claims, such as regime change in Iran.

Still, such basic journalistic malpractice is all the more deplorable given the fact that the report’s ulterior motive is explicitly spelled out in its introduction.

It openly states the research sought to challenge “misrepresentations of Iranian dissent” and “unreliable or misleading polling data,” said to have produced the “wrong conclusions.”

Examples of this are cited as two polls in October 2021, one conducted by Western survey giant Gallup, and the other by a US university, both pointing to vast public support for President Ebrahim Raeisi, and his government more generally.

The report dismisses the Gallup investigation’s significance through blatant misrepresentation, illogical arguments, and baseless conspiracy theories. The pollster found 72 percent of Iranians approved of Raeisi’s leadership - prompting the Tony Blair Institute to note that his victory was achieved on a 48 percent voter turnout, and falsely speculating that the 72 percent figure was based on a survey of only those who voted, not the Iranian population more generally.

If that wasn’t enough, the report then suggests that even if Iranians were widely polled, “participants were careful not to answer truthfully for fear of the consequences of voicing their dissent.” 

The university research is likewise diminished on dishonest grounds. The research found there was “virtually no evidence of widespread discontent with the ruling regime,” or any suggestion “the Islamic Republic is on or close to the verge of collapse.”

The Blair Institute reconciles these inconvenient truths with its underlying counter agenda by simply noting the finding, “is at odds with the fact that the Iranian population has been protesting…almost consistently since 2017.”

It’s certainly true there have been numerous protests in Iran in recent years - the university research provided clear answers as to why, although the reasons these were ignored by the Blair Institute are obvious.

It found there was indeed discontent among the populace in respect of key issues, such as the economy. However, Iranians by and large blamed “external factors,” in particular the US meddling and sanctions, for these problems, and looked to their leaders for protection and support.

‘On-the-ground intelligence’

Just as dubiously, the Tony Blair Institute relied on GAMAAN to conduct its survey. The Netherlands-based research group frequently publishes surveys with curious headline findings.

In 2019, it produced a report alleging that 70 percent of Iranians wanted secularism, and just two percent wanted to live in the Islamic Republic. The next year, it declared only 40 percent of Iranians identified as Muslims at all.

The report boasts GAMAAN can “generate reliable data,” contrary to established pollsters, by using “digital tools” to “capture the real opinions of Iranians,” such as “encrypted online surveys.”

This approach, it claims, allows citizens of the Islamic Republic “to answer questions about sensitive subjects truthfully, without fearing for their safety.”

It also means of course that the methods by which GAMAAN reaches its conclusions remain completely opaque, and we are forced to rely on it for reporting its respondents’ perspectives accurately and honestly as if they are representative of the wider population.

This is a particularly problematic pitch, given the fact that the organization is overseen by an Arab with an evident lack of sympathy for residents of Iran and its government, who once stated that the Islamic Republic “cannot be reformed by dialogue but will surrender to pressure.”

It is all the more concerning that in addition to GAMAAN’s unorthodox survey approaches, Tony Blair Institute has avowedly “developed on-the-ground intelligence in Iran through a network of contacts on the streets.”

Through this clandestine nexus, the organization “has been analyzing and forecasting protest trends in Iran for the past five years, including the ongoing nationwide uprising.”

This access meant that the Institute wasn’t “caught off guard” by recent riots. This raises the obvious question of whether the organization’s ability to “forecast protest trends in Iran” results from having in any way encouraged or orchestrated the deadly foreign-backed unrest in the first place.

The Institute would have every interest in stoking upheaval in Tehran. Its founder, the disgraced war criminal and former British premier Tony Blair was a central component of and cheerleader for the West’s War on Terror which, according to former US Army General Wesley Clark, initially aimed to “take out seven countries in five years,” starting with Iraq and ending with Iran.

Mercifully, that diabolic project didn’t come to pass, not least because the absolutely disastrous Iraq war and resultant occupation, which produced deaths in the millions, became a financially, politically, and morally unsustainable quagmire. 

The findings of an official British inquiry into the conflict concluded that it was illegal, and based on lies. Blair remained unrepentant though, stating “I believe we made the right decision and the world is better and safer,” and arguing he had embroiled Britain in a brutal war of aggression in good faith. 

No one, least of all the former Prime Minister, faced any substantive consequences due to the inquiry, and its devastating conclusions have been entirely forgotten by the mainstream media now.

Nonetheless, they are highly relevant to consider now, as Blair’s dedication to bring about regime change in Iran clearly hasn’t abated. 

An unhinged 2019 report by the Tony Blair Institute portrayed the Islamic Republic and its government as a villainous spider in the middle of a vast web of criminality and skullduggery, ultimately concerned with extending the rule of Iranian clerics to every corner of the globe.

It called directly for Western leaders to oppose the “threat” posed by Tehran by any means necessary and outlined various potential methods by which this could be achieved.

We may be seeing Blair’s long-reserved plan finally beginning to take shape in the form of deadly riots in Iran. Based on his prior record, a reasonable estimation of costly, counter-productive failure can be made. And the world will be a safer, better place for it.

Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist, exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.

(The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)

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