Iran: Stability in the Middle East

Lord Turnberg Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Turnberg]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the influence of Iran on stability in the Middle East.

[Lord Turnberg (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the question of how we in the UK should deal with Iran has been a constant struggle. We have leant over backwards to reach some sort of agreement with that country, and no one tried harder than our own noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, when she represented the EU in putting forward the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It is a particular pleasure that she will be enlightening us in this debate. However, I fear that we have failed to get any reasonably acceptable response from Iran. We might try to blame President Trump for the failure, but it is clear that appeasement was not working terribly well before he backed out of an agreement that gave us, at best, a one-year delay to Iran’s nuclear programme, and which it repeatedly disregarded.

The catalogue of activities in which Iran is engaged should make the most compliant of negotiators pause for thought. We have only to look at its actions against the UK. The imprisonment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and many others, the recent detention of our ambassador, the capture of a British-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, the planned terrorist attacks in London and the continent, the cyberattack on our own Parliament a couple of years ago, and the burning of our flag do not suggest a country that is seeking to accept a deal from us any time soon.

Let us look also at how the regime is suppressing its own people. This is a country with a proud history of intellectual and social development, now brought to its knees by a rigid theocracy. Women remain second- class citizens and homosexual men are publicly hung. Its population is constantly suppressed in the most brutal ways. Imprisonment, torture and the hanging of hundreds of dissidents each year are now the norm; 1,500 demonstrators were killed in the November demonstration alone, according to the Iranian liberty association. It is these poor citizens who are suffering the most from the economic sanctions imposed on a country intent on pouring its money into developing nuclear arms and long-range missiles for itself, as well as arms for its allies in Lebanon, Gaza, Syria and now, deeply, in Iraq.

Hezbollah has taken over Lebanon and is heavily armed, with 50,000 trained troops and 100,000 missiles hidden in villages in the south, aimed at Israel and probably Jordan. Even more worryingly, Iran has begun fitting sophisticated guidance systems to its ballistic missiles so that they can pinpoint Israeli airports and strategic targets. In Gaza, Hamas is fully armed by Iran, while in Iraq it has managed to infiltrate a huge number of armed units and achieved what it was never able to achieve when Saddam Hussein was in power: it has largely taken over the country without having to fight any wars.

In Yemen, Iran is funding the Houthi rebels as they fire missiles at the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh, its international airport and its oil fields. Saudi Arabia is now also on the front line against Iran. Finally, in Syria, which has descended into a completely failed state divided into several pieces, it is only by Iranian aid that the monster Assad has managed to survive in his subset of the country. So, now we have a Shia Iran that has taken over an arc of countries from the Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea, through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. These countries are already extremely vulnerable, with young populations and high unemployment rates; Iran is taking full advantage of that vulnerability.

However, an even greater danger lies in Iran’s attitude to Israel, about which we should be most concerned. Iran has made no secret whatever that its intention is to see Israel wiped off the map. Its leaders repeat that message every week and we should not mistake that as any desire simply to support the Palestinians. Even if the Israelis and the Palestinians ever came to an agreement, leaving aside Mr Trump’s doubtful “deal of the century”, Iran would still keep up its animosity towards—and plan to remove—Israel. In truth, it seems to care little about the Palestinians; it just wants to get rid of the Jewish state.

Iran has its allies at the ready in Lebanon and Gaza and now, most worryingly from Israel’s point of view, in Syria, right on Israel’s northern border. So far, Israel has been surreptitiously reducing Iran’s military capacity there, but it is quite unclear how long that can continue. Israel is surrounded and feels besieged. We should know that all these threats are in addition to the prospect of Iran going all out to develop its nuclear bomb. Israel takes the threat from Iran very seriously indeed. Anyone threatening to wipe out the Jews, now at the press of a button—with the memories of Auschwitz so strong this week—is taken very seriously. Israel is on ready alert to respond to any attack, or even, equally dangerously, to pre-empt one with a devastating attack of its own. That way leads to a war across the rest of the Middle East and inevitably, much as we would like to keep out, we and the EU, as well as America, would be drawn in.

So, what should we be doing here in the UK? I have some questions for the Minister. First, I understand that we have halted the JCPOA agreement and put it into a dispute resolution mechanism, even though Iran has clearly stated that the agreement is dead and that it is continuing to enrich uranium beyond the 3.67% limit. Can we seriously believe Iran when it says that it is developing its nuclear power simply for peaceful purposes? I think not. It seems inevitable that Iran will be referred to the UN Security Council and further sanctions applied.

Iran gives no impression that it is a friend waiting to come in from the cold. Where are we up to with the dispute resolution process? And what about INSTEX, our trade agreement with Iran, set up jointly with other EU countries? I hope that our Government will think long and hard about any trade deals with Iran while it continues its belligerent stance, its sponsorship of terrorism and its inhumane treatment of its own citizens. What is the current situation with INSTEX?

Is there anything else that might induce the Iranian leadership to change its position? Alone, we have little chance, but we may be able to engage those who have greater influence. I think particularly of Russia and China. Are we in discussion with Russia about what pressure it may be able to bring to bear on the regime? Mr Putin’s recent invitation to our Prime Minister to join him in Moscow at a meeting of UN Security Council members could be an enormously valuable opportunity to discuss global issues; inevitably, that should include the threats to Middle East security and Iran’s role in them. I hope that our Prime Minister will accept this opportunity. Mr Putin certainly does not want a nuclear war on his doorstep. What about China? We have now done it a favour; perhaps it may be encouraged to reciprocate by exerting pressure on Iran. We need as many allies as we can get.

As far as Israel is concerned, we should of course continue to press Israel and the Palestinians to come together and reach some form of agreement—even though the Trump plan may not be the answer—and we should urge restraint on Israel as it tries to deal with the threats surrounding it. However, we have to face up to the fact that Israel will listen to such words of caution only if they are accompanied by our own full recognition of the nature of Iran’s threat. We should support Israel as it tries to work out how to deal with that threat, which is not only to Israel and the rest of the Middle East but, inevitably, to us too. What is the Government’s attitude to Israel as it faces up to the threats to its existence?

In a world where political wisdom and moral leadership are sadly in short supply, it is vital that we find a path to de-escalation in what has become a Middle East arms race. We are faced with many perils and I fear that Iran is inflaming rather than stabilising them. We should not be fooled into believing that we can isolate ourselves from the fallout.

I am delighted that so many noble Lords have agreed to speak, and I very much look forward to hearing their words of wisdom.