In 2001 Jack Straw, Britain’s foreign secretary, became the most senior UK official to visit Iran since the 1979 revolution. Straw, a close confidante of the Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, published his memoirs in 2012. Now he has written a thought-provoking and timely new book focusing on the Islamic Republic’s fixation with Britain and his own experiences in dealing with it.

Iran, Straw recounts in The English Job (subtitle: Understanding Iran and Why It Distrusts Britain), is the only country in the world that still thinks that the UK is a global superpower. “To the Iranians, however, it’s not a joke.” Suspicion and paranoia about foreign interference are the enduring legacy of the troubled relations between the two countries. He finds Iran simultaneously fascinating, infuriating and perplexing.

Straw’s 2001 visit came in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on America – and before the US invasion of Afghanistan. Tehran condemned the attacks and also provided “much valuable intelligence” in return for US information on Al-Qaida leaders who had fled to Iran. But President George Bush’s speech, in which he included Iran in his famous “axis of evil,” only benefitted the hardliners in Tehran, he argues.

Even then he was aware of the strong feelings Iranians harbour about Britain’s role. It was seen as the “old colonial fox” that had taken advantage of their country’s weakness in the 19th century. It occupied part of it during and after the second world war. Britain took part in the coup against the democratically-elected Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953, supported the Shah and supplied weapons to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war.

Soon afterwards Straw represented Britain when it tried, along with France and Germany – acting as the E3 – to engage Iran on the sensitive question of its nuclear programme. Efforts ended when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (“on a different planet from the rest of us”) became president and were only revived under the Obama administration after 2009.

The British embassy in Tehran, with two separate compounds, is still one of the largest and best known in the capital. The US embassy – still referred to in Persian as the “nest of spies” - is now a museum commemorating its seizure and the subsequent hostage crisis during the revolution.

Inspiration for the book came long after Straw ended his official role. In 2015 he went on holiday to Iran with his wife and two friends. They were followed and harassed by members of the Basij militia. It was indeed a holiday to remember – but not for relaxing reasons. He calls it “forced conscription into a thriller.”

The Basij handed out a petition: “Although it is in our tradition as Iranians to welcome guests, this ‘welcome’ gesture does not apply to you!” it began. “The people of Iran do not have good memories about you and the British regime. “You know better than us about the crimes and the …plots that were orchestrated by your country against the people of this land.”

Straw reflects interestingly on the gap in perceptions between the two sides: “These days there is no collective memory in Britain that we, with the Soviets, ran Iran for almost five years. But the memory in Iran is fresh, and it is everywhere,” he writes. The US led the coup against Mossadegh - a defining moment of 20th century Iranian history. But “it would and could not have happened at all but for us,” he admits frankly. “It was an English job – and we are still living with the consequences.”

Britain’s role fused with the concept of gharbzadegi (Westoxification), which became a standard term of revolutionary politics after 1979. The west’s support for Saddam during the eight bloody years of the Iran-Iraq war is still a recent memory for the country’s current leaders - including the IRGC’s Quds force commander Qassem Soleimani- as is the support of most Arab states except Syria.

A persistent theme is the fact that the representatives of the Iranian state – diplomats and nuclear negotiators who maintain contact with foreigners – have no control over far more powerful elements: the Supreme Leader, the IRGC, the Basij. As he summarizes the question: “The hard end of state power is completely beyond the influence of the elected government.”

Straw is certainly critical of Iran, but not fundamentally hostile. John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s hawkish –and now former - national security adviser, even dubbed him “Jack of Tehran.” He observes that a consistent theme of Iran’s foreign policy is the desire to be respected internationally as one of the dominant powers of the region. “Indeed, it is more than just a desire; rather a craving. It is based on a deep-seated sense of Iranian nationalism, of pride in the antiquity of its civilization, and of continued resentment that the country’s strategic importance has not been properly recognized.”

Ian is a former Middle East editor, diplomatic editor and European editor for the Guardian newspaper. In recent years he has reported and commented extensively on the Arab uprisings and their aftermath in Syria, Libya and Egypt, along with frequent visits to Iran, the Gulf and across the MENA region. His latest book, a new history of the Palestine–Israel conflict, was published in 2017 to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration and the 50th anniversary of the 1967 war. He has an MA in history and social and political science from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in government from LSE. Ian has written for the Economist, the Washington Post and many other publications, and is a regular commentator on TV and radio on Middle Eastern and international affairs. He wrote the introduction to The Arab Spring: Revolution, Rebellion and a New World Order (Guardian Books, 2012); Israel's Secret Wars (Grove Press, 1991), Zionism and the Arabs, 1936–1939 (Taylor & Francis, 1986, 2015); and contributed to the Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa (Macmillan Library Reference, 2004). His most recent book is Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017 (Allen Lane, 2017).

The English Job: Understanding Iran and Why It Distrusts Britain