All you need to know about John Updike's review of Le Carre's new novel “The Mission Song”, in the New Yorker:

"In “Absolute Friends” (2003), the sore spot became le Carré’s fury at the American and British intervention in Iraq."

That's a resound from Updike's cite of Lowell's poem “July in Washington” - the stiff spokes of this wheel / touch the sore spots of the earth - which technically would make Iraq the sore spot, not Le Carre's anger at American and British intervention.
But in fact the book[Absolute Friends] isn't about anything so facile.
It's a frighteningly vivid portrayal of a new Other, faster, smarter, far more powerful, treacherous, amoral - almost another race - sharing our time and planet with us, doing what it wills when it will.
The image is pretty scary, and totally convincing, so it's understandable Updike would feel the need to trivialize it. But it's inaccurate to say the book's driven by "fury".
As always with Le Carre's best books it's compassion that's holding everything together, not anger.