The curious tragedy

Alireza Akbari, Iran, and espionage

We will discuss Israel with Col Adam Oler, USAF (ret), Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the National War College on Friday, 19 May at noon. Col Oler was in Israel several weeks ago during the height of the protests against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s proposed judical reforms. A long time visitor and analyst of the Jewish state, we will learn from his keen observations. Link will appear soon. Please feel free to alert me to anyone you believe would care to participate in this Timely Topic.

Near and dear to any Israeli’s heart is security, so tenuous a concept over the nation’s entire existence. For the past generation, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary government with its declaratory ambition of eradicating the entire Jewish state spurred much anxiety for Jews and their supporters globally.

Influencing Teheran’s decision-making has been difficult, if not impossible, as the Shi’ia government seeks to retain its revolutionary, aggressive nature while maintaining harsh rule over a population full of younger, less devout Iranians unable to remember the Shah’s dictatorial, secular rule. Protests within the Islamic state over the last several months, based on women demanding looser standards for themselves along with physical protection from the radicals seeking to retribution for anyone making those demands, stressed the regime but it maintains in power.

Teheran cozies up with Russia and Beijing to poke Washington. Public reports indicate the Iranians selling arms to Putin while helping meet Beijing’s energy needs. The Iranians and Saudis, the two states known respectively for being central to Shi’ite and Sunni sects of Islam, are putting aside their decades’ hatred to work on a more common view of the future. Iran still hates Israel. The overall determination to retain the ultra-religious antipathy towards the rest of the world remains rather strong.

It was thus a bit of a surprise today to read of a British mole within the upper echelon of the Islamic Republic. Hung and buried in a common grave outside the capital in January of this year, the New York Times indicated he operated on behalf of London (who presumably shared his information elsewhere) for a period of time.¹ This strikes me as fairly remarkable.

Alireza Akbari, according to the Times’s article, provided highly critical details of both the Iranian nuclear plans and the names of those in charge of it beginning almost two decades ago. As a member of the Iranian government, Akbari had sterling Islamic radical credentials. A trusted member of the defense establishment, he provided shocking information to the British while publicly articulating arguments to the world that Iran was not developing a nuclear weapons program.

That there was a spy within Iran is not particularly shocking, I suppose. Teheran has been operating outside of the global community in many ways since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, with senior mullahs discussing the world as if everyone had the same 7th century vision of Islam spreading without except everywhere. Surely not everyone in that society, even religious adherents such as Akbari, can ignore the vulnerable position this presents to Iran, a country of nearly 90 million people, a society falling far behind the rest of the world in many ways.

The surprise to me was that Akbari was questioned in 2008, according to the report, but still allowed to live in Britain, ultimately taking citizenship there. Upon that interrogation, his vocal supporters within the highest levels of the regime supported him emigrating ; they obviously had no indication whatsoever of his de facto repudiation of and active steps against his homeland. Instead, Akbari spent increasing time in western nations, serving on an Austrian corporate board. He suffered a heart attack in Britain 13 years ago, allowing his family to meet him in the United Kingdom where he ultimately took citizenship.

Akbari returned to Iran in 2019 upon request of the government for a special mission, one from which he never returned. Questioning, undoubtedly extremely harsh, resulted in a coerced confession circulated by the mullahs to reveal his perfidy. Three years later, Teheran began the year with his execution, ending that source of detail for western governments.

One has to wonder how much he was able to provide upon relocating to the United Kingdom more than a decade ago. I am even more curious that the regime did not pursue him abroad as the Saudis did in 2018 by luring dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi to its Istanbul embassy where they killed and dismembered him.

One would expect that the government in Teheran probably has not slept well over the many months since realising Akbari’s espionage resulted in secrets flying abroad.

We forget that relationships around the world are important reasons for individuals to assume important positions but also to escape precarious positions. the Chinese call relationships quanxi an it sympolises the human links over either the rules of law or independent credentials. I don’t know Iran well enough to know if Akbari’s ties would have been similar in this case but I do know that there must have been may scratching their heads when this occurred. I also expect that western governments wished the story had not appeared on the front page of a major newspaper for fear others in various places might come to similar endings.

Journalists, however, would argue as I noted over the weekend the importance of getting news out for accountability.FIN

1. Farnaz Fassihi and Ronen Bergman, ‘Iranian Insider and British Spy: How a Double Life Ended on the Gallows’, NewYorkTimes.com, 1 May 2023, retrieved at