Iran (UK Foreign Policy)

Jack Straw Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) and I are grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to the debate. The hon. Gentleman and I are joint chairmen of the all-party parliamentary group on Iran. Flagged on today’s Order Paper is the report on Iran from the Foreign Affairs Committee, published in July. I know that the whole House will be grateful for that.

The debate comes at an important moment. In less than three weeks, on 24 November, the deadline for the current phase of the E3 plus 3 nuclear negotiations with Iran will be reached. Before I say more about those negotiations, let me put the debate in context. Here in the United Kingdom, too little is either known or understood about Iran. With a population of 77 million, it is second in size only to Egypt in the wider middle east, but it is much more prosperous than Egypt. It is “middle income” on the United Nations’ GDP measure, ahead of Bulgaria, which is a member of the European Union. Iran has a distinguished three-millennium civilisation, with as many connections, cultural and political, to Europe as to its southern and eastern neighbours. Its language is Indo-European. The words “Iran” and “Aryan” share the same root. Although it is Muslim, it is Muslim in its own singular way, through its practice of Shi’ism. It is a great mistake ever to suggest to an Iranian that Iranians are Arabs. It may sound counter-intuitive today, but traditionally lran’s strongest links in the region had been with the Jewish communities of the middle east.

Iran’s relationship with the United Kingdom has over many decades been close but difficult. “Behind every curtain you’ll find an Englishman,” goes one familiar saying in Farsi. From an Iranian perspective, one can appreciate why. From the late 19th century onwards we saw relations with Iran in mercantilist, neo-colonialist terms only. Iran was divided into spheres of influence by Russia under the Tsar and the United Kingdom. In the early part of the last century, highly preferential terms for the D’Arcy petroleum company, the forerunner of BP, were extorted from the then Government. Subsequently, we were instrumental in removing the Qajar dynasty, putting Reza Shah on the throne. We jointly occupied Iran with the Soviet Union for five years from 1941 to 1946. We and the United States then successfully conspired to remove the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953.

We then continued this rather dismal record by propping up the Shah even when there was every indication, if only we had recognised it, that he was heading a decadent and decaying regime which was highly likely to collapse. A year after the Islamic revolution came the Iran-Iraq war, in which by common consent Iraq was the aggressor and Iran the victim, but the west, including the UK, sided with the aggressor.

At the end of this week we have our Remembrance Sunday, when we remember the fallen who gave their lives for us in two world wars. Those wars are part of the definition of contemporary Britain. Similarly, we understand nothing about Iran if we do not understand the deep and still contemporary trauma that the Iran-Iraq war inflicted on Iranian society—the near-million killed and the sense of isolation which that war reinforced as one western nation after another, the UK included, unworthily supported Iraq. With that isolation came the sense that Iran could rely only upon itself.

Despite its complex and difficult relationship with the United Kingdom, the US and other western nations, Iran principally looks west, not east or south, for its future. Of course, there are those in the system who define themselves against the “Satans” of the west and who have a vested interest in the status quo, including in sanctions, but there are many, many more who want a normal relationship with the west. It was that demand that lay behind President Rouhani’s surprising victory in the presidential elections in June 2013, and there are, indeed, more American PhDs in President Rouhani’s Cabinet than in President Obama’s.

In the 1980s—and under the cover of mutually rebarbative, but carefully controlled, rhetoric—the one country from whom Iran gained some understanding, and very significant arms supplies, was Israel. David Menashri, of Tel Aviv university, one of Israel’s foremost experts on Iran, subsequently commented:

“Throughout the 1980s, no one in Israel said anything about an Iranian threat”

to Israel. He continued:

“The word wasn’t even uttered.”

That, however, was all in the days of the cold war.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I am listening intently and with great interest and I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. However, he will perhaps agree that it was not just a question of the election of President Rouhani; there have been attempts in the past by Iran to reach out. While accepting that mistakes have been made by both sides in this difficult relationship, one only has to think of immediately after 9/11 when the Iranians reached out, and the early days of Afghanistan when they tried to help and did, indeed, help, but were rebuffed by the “axis of evil” speech by President Bush, for example.

[Mr Straw]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I was heavily involved after President Khatami reached out to the United States in the moment of need. Iran provided significant practical help, without which it would have been far more difficult to remove the Taliban and to retake Kabul. Iran got no thanks for that, however. It was unnecessarily rebuffed by the United States at the time, as it was during the 2003-05 nuclear negotiations. It was also rebuffed when it sought a comprehensive bargain with the west. I am afraid that that prospect was greeted in parts of the United States with suspicion. In my view, there was a worry that if a deal was struck that resulted in the normalisation of relations with Iran, the part of the American system—and, indeed, the part of the Israeli system—that always likes to define itself against some kind of enemy would have had that enemy removed.

Twenty-five years after the collapse of the Berlin wall, the metrics of the middle east have all changed. The view of the Netanyahu Government in Israel, which is echoed by many in the United States Congress, is that Iran now poses an existential threat to the state of Israel because of the doubts as to whether Iran’s nuclear programmes have a military purpose. Those programmes are the subject of the intensive negotiations that will, we hope, have reached a satisfactory conclusion by 24 November.

As it was I, along with my French and German counterparts, who began the original E3 negotiations with Iran in 2003, I offer the following observations. Iran is not an easy country to negotiate with. That is partly due to cultural and linguistic problems and partly for historical reasons, but fundamentally it is a product of Iran’s complex and opaque governmental system, in which the elected President has constantly to broker decisions with unelected elements, including those in the revolutionary guards and those in the Supreme Leader’s office.

Unlike North Korea, which pulled out of the non-proliferation treaty, or India, Pakistan and Israel—all nuclear weapons states which have never accepted the treaty’s obligations—Iran has stayed within it. The treaty protects

“the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes”.

However, the treaty is silent on the question—critical to the outcome of the negotiations—of the enrichment of uranium. The Iranians claim a right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, and I hope the whole House will support them in that. The interim agreement signed last November explicitly recognised that.

The last set of negotiations, which took place between 2003 and 2005 and in which I was directly involved, ran into the ground. The Bush Administration had undermined the Khatami Administration through the “axis of evil” speech, and they did so again by refusing to offer Iran any confidence-building measures until it was too late. By that time, conservative forces in Iran had re-gathered their strength, with President Ahmadinejad the result.

When parliamentary colleagues and I met Foreign Minister Zarif in Tehran in January this year, he pointed out that when I had been negotiating with him in 2005, Iran had fewer than 200 centrifuges. After eight years of sanctions, it now has 18,800. We should be careful what we wish for. The good news about the current round of negotiations is that both sides have kept them confidential. However, it is no secret that the Iranian Government cannot do a deal unless it includes a continuation of enrichment for peaceful purposes, and unless the scale of the programme allowed does not involve the Government having to make significant numbers of its scientists redundant.

The negotiations are predicated on the basis that, because of Iran’s past failures to make full disclosures to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there remain unanswered questions about the true intent of Iran’s nuclear programmes. None of us outside the inner workings of the Iranian Government can know for certain what this is. My own instinct is that after the trauma of the Iran-Iraq war, Iran probably did begin work on a nuclear weapons system. More recently, however, a 2007 US national intelligence estimate—which has been reconfirmed by the White House in the past two years—concluded that Tehran had halted nuclear weaponisation work in 2003. If that is the case, there is no reason why, with some flexibility on both sides, a deal should not be concluded. If that happens, the gradual lifting of sanctions—which Iran so desperately needs—will help to bring Iran back fully as a partner in the international community.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman’s well-informed speech, and I am impressed by it. In 2004, Hassan Rouhani, who was then the chief nuclear negotiator, stated:

“While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the facility in Isfahan…by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work”.

Is not that an ominous warning for the current negotiations?

[Mr Straw]

I have seen that quotation before. One of the truths about the Iranians is that they have a history of sticking to the letter of what is agreed while trying to make that agreement as accommodating to themselves as possible. They are not the only country to do that. However, it was Hassan Rouhani—now President Rouhani—sitting across the table and leading the negotiations, and I believed that he was a man with whom we could do a deal. I am glad that the present British Government self-evidently still think that; otherwise, they would not be sitting across the table from his representatives now. There is no evidence one way or the other that what was being installed at Isfahan was related to the weaponisation of the nuclear programme. I have seen no such evidence whatever, and Iran has a right to a nuclear power programme in the same way as any non-nuclear weapons state does.

My plea to the British Government is that they do not make the best the enemy of the good in these negotiations. Just as the world changed 25 years ago with the collapse of the Berlin wall, so it is changing again before our eyes, especially in the middle east. With chaos in Iraq and in Syria, many now see the potential of Iran to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. A deal that is good for both sides would have other benefits, not least for human rights. There cannot be anyone in the House who does not share the profound concern about aspects of Iran’s human rights record, including the recent incarcerations and executions.

One of the truths about Iran’s complex and opaque system of government is that the elected Government do not control the judiciary. There are other unacceptable elements of the regime. The more we are able to do a deal—of course on acceptable terms—the more it will empower the elected Government and the better able we will be to secure a resolution of the other concerns, including those on human rights. The reverse is also true.

[Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (Ind)]

Has there been any evidence from the right hon. Gentleman’s past negotiations with Iran, or prior to that point, that any “give” on the part of the west has done anything to improve the lot of the people in that country? In my view, there is little or no evidence of any movement in relation to Iran’s human rights record.

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[Mr Straw]

I think there is. For example, we can look at the human rights record under President Rafsanjani, and it got better under President Khatami. As long as President Khatami had power and authority in the extraordinary and very competitive power game that takes place in Tehran, he was able to do things. Moreover, the level of media freedom these days is infinitely greater than it was under Ahmadinejad. The licence to break the controls on the internet, including from President Rouhani himself, also illustrates that changes have taken place. There is a long way to go, however. I am certain that improvements in human rights will come about only through the empowerment of the forces for good in Iran and a diminution of those who are opposed to change. If there is no deal, the consequences are likely to be adverse not only for Iran but for the international community.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman knows my views on this. I support exactly what he is trying to do, and I take the view that the Government must, if they can, move all this forward. Does he agree, however, that one of the most difficult things in dealing with Iran is that, rather like China and Russia, it has absolutely no regard for the rules, other than the rules it chooses to set itself. The complications for America are shown in the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) just now, in that it is impossible to know whether or not the Iranians are going to abide by the rules, and that makes it much more difficult to reach a conclusion.

[Mr Straw]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and I recognise the support he gives on this issue. I do not generalise between Russia and China; they have similarities, to the extent that they refuse to accept obligations, but they differ. These days we can see in China a real determination by many elements of its Government better to impose a rule of law. Going back to what I have said, those who have dealings, both diplomatic and business, with Iran say that the Iranians are very hard negotiators—and they are—but when, in the end, they have done a deal, they stick to it. It has to be said that there is no evidence that Iran has resiled from what it agreed on 24 November 2013; the IAEA reports that it has implemented what it has agreed.

If there is no deal and negotiations break down because of unacceptable red lines from some, but not all, of the six countries involved, over time the international consensus will break down. First China and then Russia will peel away, and then we are likely to see a reappraisal of policy within the European Union. That reappraisal will be fuelled in part by a belief that US sanctions against Iran have a greater effect extra-territorially, on European banks and trading entities, than they have within the domestic jurisdiction of the US itself. That belief is well founded, because the US authorities do provide greater certainty, and therefore greater protection from penalty, to US banks and entities trading with Iran than they do to similar banks and entities outside the US; I am talking about legal trade allowed under the sanctions regimes.

That may explain the curious irony about exports in recent years to Iran. Across the EU, such exports have slumped in the past 10 years, whereas in the US they are on a rising trend. Ten years ago, US exports to Iran were one ninth of ours, but now they are double. One reason for the fall in our exports, proportionately greater than any other western country’s, is that the UK is alone in maintaining a policy of not supporting any trade with Iran. I have heard no credible explanation for that, and I ask the Minister to have it revised.

I have to be brief, given the time, but the last matters I wish to raise are important and they relate to the reopening of the embassy. The Foreign Affairs Committee reported in July that the reopening was imminent, and indeed it was. As I understand it, that has fallen away not only for some practical reasons, but because of the Home Office’s refusal to accept the re-establishment of a visa regime without categorical undertakings from the Iranians about returns. Iran is difficult on the issue of returns of overstayers and illegals, but so are China, India, Nigeria and a long list of other countries. Iranians do not feature in the top 10 of foreign national prisoners here, or of returns. So I very much hope this is not an area where British foreign policy, and the importance of reopening the embassy fully, is being led not by King Charles street, but by 2 Marsham street, the headquarters of the Home Office. That would be an eccentricity which this House should not tolerate.

I have spoken for too long, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am very grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for the opportunity to have this important debate on Iran.

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[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend is right to raise these matters. The mob that came through was essentially let through by the security guards who were supposed to protect the embassy. We must pursue both the security and the repayment issues before reopening the embassy.

The second issue is about visa services. We and the Iranian Government agree on the importance of visa services resuming in capitals as soon as possible after embassies reopen. Visas are an important issue for the large number of Iranian citizens who wish to visit the UK but who currently must travel to Abu Dhabi or Istanbul to obtain them. Restoring a visa service in Tehran is important both as a key component of normal embassy business and for the broader UK-Iran bilateral relationship. A future UK visa service in Tehran must be able to operate effectively and within the framework of Iranian law, while also meeting broader UK immigration objectives. In particular, we need to address the problem of individuals with no legal right to remain in the UK.

Both these issues are essential to the British embassy’s ability to function effectively in Tehran, and we hope we can reach agreement with the Iranian authorities soon, so that our plans for the embassy can progress.

[Mr Straw]

As the Minister knows, I am absolutely with him and the Foreign Secretary on the issue of our being able to re-equip the embassy. On the visa service issue, however, does he understand the high suspicion that exists that our foreign policy is, to a degree, being blocked by the Home Office, and that what the Home Office is demanding is evidence of a greater willingness to allow returns than was the practice when we did have an embassy, and than is the practice in respect of other countries that are more difficult than Iran over the question of returns, including of foreign national prisoners?

[Mr Ellwood]

I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman says. The fact that there are other challenges with other countries in respect of these issues should not prevent us from trying to strike the appropriate deal when opening these embassies, but I take on board his point.

Both the issues I referred to earlier are essential to the British embassy’s ability to function effectively in Tehran, and we hope we can reach agreement with the Iranian authorities as soon as possible.

[Mr Ellwood]

If the visa situation were to be resolved, the embassy would still not open straight away. There are certain Vienna convention conditions that still need to be met. I cannot say more than that, but until that happens we will not be able to reopen our embassy.

On trade and sanctions, it is important to remember that economic pressure has been the key to bringing Iran back to the negotiating table, enabling us to pursue a peaceful solution to one of the most thorny national security challenges of our time. That pressure has been achieved through sanctions as well as through broader reductions in trade, driven by assessments made by companies and banks that trading with Iran carries risks. Weakening that economic pressure risks undermining prospects for a nuclear agreement, and that is why we do not currently encourage trade with Iran.

That is also why we support US sanctions, which are closely aligned with EU sanctions and form a core part of the international sanctions regime. US secondary sanctions, which influence companies’ commercial decisions over whether to trade with Iran, have had some of the highest impacts of all economic sanctions, particularly in reducing Iranian oil exports. I do not agree that such sanctions are designed to bolster US trade with Iran at the expense of UK and EU trade. In response to the right hon. Member for Blackburn’s point, EU trade with Iran at the moment is higher than that of the US—

[Mr Straw]

rose—

[Mr Ellwood]

I knew the right hon. Gentleman would want to come back on that. In certain areas, such as agriculture, there has been an increase, but the amount of EU trade with Iran is 40 times higher than that between the US and Iran.

[Mr Straw]

The truth is that EU trade with Iran has more than halved overall, and ours has absolutely plummeted. Meanwhile, from a base of close to zero 10 years ago, the United States has been pushing up its trade in a straightforward, ruthless and mercantilist way. It has not allowed diplomatic niceties to get in the way when its trade is legal, but it has discouraged legal trade by UK entities.

[Mr Ellwood]

The right hon. Gentleman’s point is well made. I note that a Europe-Iran trade forum took place here in London in October. Representatives of the Foreign Office attended it, but we did not endorse it as such. However, that shows that trade is taking place. As I mentioned in response to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk, we are trying to affect behaviour. If we continue to encourage trade before we have reached a nuclear deal, we will undermine our influence in that regard.

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[Mr Straw]

I wish to reinforce the thanks of all of us to the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to this debate, and I thank all 15 Members who have spoken in this thoughtful and valuable debate.

There is common ground on the importance of Iran and on Israel’s entirely legitimate concerns, as a small and potentially vulnerable country in the region, to protect its own security—the difference lies in the approach we should adopt towards Iran. When I said we need to be careful what we wish for, I was drawing the attention of those who may take a different view from many of us in this House to the consequences of an antagonistic approach towards Iran. I simply ask those who do adopt that view not to look into the crystal ball but to examine the record of the past 50 years and, indeed, the past 10 years.

The hon. Members for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) and for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) referred to the offer of a grand bargain with the United States and the co-operation that was actively delivered to us—it was not just offered—by the Khatami Government in the wake of the 9/11 atrocities. It was actions and inactions by the west, particularly the United States, fanned by the right wing in Israel, that led to those offers by the reformists in Iran being rebuffed. The consequence was not that Iran disappeared or that the possibility of Iran building up a nuclear weapons capability disappeared, but that Iran became more difficult to deal with, more belligerent and disruptive in the region, and its 200 centrifuges increased to 18,800. So please let nobody here believe that if there is no deal because of pressure from parts of US and parts of the Israeli governmental elite, that would lead to a status quo or, madly, to attacks on Iran. What it will lead to, in the judgment of many of us here, is an increase in enrichment capabilities and an empowering of precisely those elements inside the governmental system of Iran whom we do not wish to see empowered. There will also be more difficulties on human rights.

I understand, of course, that there are risks on both sides, but I hope that the Minister, whom I thank for his thoughtful contribution, will take away from this debate the point that many of us who took part in it—both Government and Opposition Members—believe that there are risks worth taking in these negotiations, because the benefits of a respectful deal on this nuclear dossier will extend far beyond nuclear and will far outweigh the risks.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered UK foreign policy towards Iran.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I apologise for interrupting the business of the House, but a story that amounts to a national scandal broke this morning in a public hearing of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. It has long been taken as a standard in this country that the relationship between a lawyer and a client is protected by privilege, and that communications between them are protected from intervention by the state. What has become clear this morning is not only that that is not case at the moment, but that each of the three agencies has policies for handling legally protected material, and in one case for deliberately withholding that material, even from secret courts and security-cleared special advocates. My question to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, is how do we deal with that? Have the Government approached you requesting to come to this House to explain precisely how this came about?