How are satire and irony contextualized in the Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene?

Graham Greene, who had worked for MI6, Britain’s intelligence service, locates his satire of the espionage novel in pre-Castro Cuba. During the 1950s, the popular image of the British spy as a dashing figure had been well established by the James Bond character in Ian Fleming’s novels. One key feature of Greene’s satire is that James Wormold, the title character of Our Man in Havana, is the polar opposite of James Bond. The mild-mannered Wormold is a reluctant spy who runs a vacuum-cleaner dealership and is a single father to a teenage daughter, not a jet-setter who frequents casinos. Rather than having serial relationships with glamorous women who find him irresistible, Wormold develops a relationship with a serious female agent who is sent to supervise him.
At the broadest level, Greene satirizes the goals and methods of the Cold War intelligence efforts. Wormold makes up information to satisfy his handlers’ demands for proof of Communist activity, as he has no real leads. The irony largely consists of his being rewarded rather than punished for his duplicity. Not only do the higher-level authorities praise him to the skies, he is even knighted. Saving face rather than unearthing real information is shown as the driving force behind MI6 activities.