Iran

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baron]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. In certain quarters in the middle east, it is felt that double standards are being applied in that Israel has developed nuclear weapons and the west does not seem to worry about them. [Interruption.] My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) suggests that the evidence is circumstantial, and I am willing to grant him that point.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Can my hon. Friend name any experts in the field who would explain how enrichment to a 20% threshold, currently being undertaken by the Iranian regime, could plausibly be for civilian and not military use?

[Mr Baron]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point, which I will address later in my speech, but I say to him now that there is a world of difference between nuclear capability and actually having nuclear weapons. I am sure that the House would accept that difference.

A second inconvenient truth relates to the usual depiction of Iran as intransigent and for ever chauvinistic in her foreign policy. Western Governments, I suggest, too easily forget that Iran is not totally at fault here. There have been opportunities to better relations between Iran and the west, but the west has spurned those opportunities. We forget, for example, that following 9/11, Iran—unlike many in the middle east street—expressed solidarity with the US. We forget also that attempts were made to develop contacts during the early stages of the Afghan war. What was Iran’s reward? It was to be labelled or declared part of the “axis of evil” by President Bush, which led directly to the removal of the reformist and moderate President Khatami. Despite that, there were further attempts at co-operation in the run-up to the Iraq war, but those efforts were similarly rebuffed.

Again, I ask the Foreign Secretary whether he is prepared to deny that the west has made mistakes in its dealings with Iran and has missed opportunities to better relations. I would genuinely like to hear his views on that and would welcome an intervention.

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[Mr Hague]

It will be clear from my remarks that that is not what I am calling for, although I will shortly come to some of the arguments about it. It is very difficult to speculate about what the actual physical impact of a military strike would be, as it would depend on who did it, what they did it with, and exactly which facilities were struck. However, it is not something that we are advocating, as will be clear from my speech.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Would my right hon. Friend like to disabuse the House of the notion that were it not for 9/11 there would have been a rapprochement with the Iranian regime, given that well before that period Iran was the leading state sponsor of international terrorism, as we have seen most recently in Azerbaijan and Bangkok?

[Mr Hague]

I am about to come to that point, so I will make some more progress in doing so.

It is our assessment and that of our allies that Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons—that is in line with what the right hon. Member for Blackburn said—and is steadily developing the capability to produce such weapons should it choose to do so. A nuclear-armed Iran would have devastating consequences for the middle east and could shatter the non-proliferation treaty. On that point, I differ from the right hon. Gentleman, because I believe, given everything that I have seen and heard in the region as Foreign Secretary so far, that if Iran set about the development of nuclear weapons, other nations in the middle east would do so as well, and that there would be a nuclear arms race in the region.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) suggests, our well-founded concerns that Iran’s intentions may not be purely peaceful are heightened by its policies in other areas. It is a regime that recently conspicuously failed to prevent the sacking of our embassy premises in Iran; that conspired to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States on American soil; that only last week was accused of planning and carrying out attacks against Israeli diplomats; that is providing assistance to the Syrian Government’s violent campaign against their own people; and that supports armed proxy groups including Hezbollah and Hamas. Taken together with Iran’s nuclear activities, this behaviour threatens international peace and security. That is why Iran is one of the very top priorities in foreign affairs for this Government, just as it was for the last Government.

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[Mr Alexander]

We must do everything in our power to avoid nuclear weapons first proliferating and secondly falling into the hands of non-state actors. When we reflect even for a moment, as the Foreign Secretary did for the elucidation of the House, on the track record of the regime in Tehran in supporting non-state actors and their violent methods, even in recent days, we should redouble our efforts to avoid a scenario in which Tehran would have that choice. That would be a deeply worrying prospect not only for its immediate neighbours but for global security more generally.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would be foolish to take any options off the table, given that many foreign policy specialists believe that President Ahmadinejad is under severe threat, that he and his supporters might be removed from the parliamentary elections in 2012, and that he might be excluded from the presidency in 2013 and replaced by revolutionary guard-supported politicians and a more theocratic, militarist, jihadist regime?

[Mr Alexander]

For the reasons that I have outlined and will continue to outline, I believe that it would be wrong to take those options off the table. When calibrating the way forward, one has to factor in the potential for change within the Iranian regime, given the prospect of elections next month. We are facing some critical months in terms of judgments to be reached in Tehran and elsewhere. That is why the responsible course at this juncture is to advance the twin-track approach that has characterised the attitude of the international community.

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[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the gracious stance taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) and to the articulate and sincere way in which he put his case. That is as much as I can say to him, because I will vote not for his motion but for the amendment moved by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind). I share much of my hon. Friend’s analysis, but unfortunately from his point of view I reached an entirely different conclusion.

I should like to focus on the political background in Iran, which was touched on by my hon. Friend, and to test the efficacy of sanctions, if they are plan B. It is not too fanciful or exaggerated to say that we might be in a moment similar to Europe in the mid-1930s. Iran is a state that presents an existential threat to its neighbours and has designs on regional and possibly global hegemony. The Foreign Secretary was right at the weekend to describe it as having the potential to set off a chain reaction cold war in the proliferation of nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other states. Iran also has a record of significant lack of compliance with IAEA inspectors and an appalling human rights record, which was mentioned in a Westminster Hall debate last month in which I was fortunate enough to participate.

We are at an historic juncture, and the Foreign Secretary is right to point out the dangers to the world of a nuclear Iran. However, unlike, for instance, North Korea, Iran is not a monolithic regime. It has varied centres of power and influence. There is institutional conflict within the regime and among the dominant conservative strain within the elite, particularly between the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and President Ahmadinejad. There is a battle between theocracy, republicanism, nationalism and clericalism. As I mentioned in an intervention, there is a chance that President Ahmadinejad will be impeached or removed before or in 2013.

One important factor in the development of a jihadist, militarist theology is the impact that the revolutionary guards could have on parliamentary elections and in suppressing the green movement, as we saw in 2009. There is also an ongoing power struggle between the President and Parliament over political appointments.

We should bear in mind in all decisions we take—particularly any decision to remove the option of military action from the table, or decisions on the current sanctions regime and the positions we lay out in Israel, Europe and the United States—that we could still see the consolidation of the power of hard-line clerics, the revolutionary guards and their militia, the Basij. The starting point could be that a candidate much more extreme than Ayatollah Khamenei is in place by the end of 2013. A military regime with a theocratic basis would threaten the greater middle east region and the world. We face that prospect.

No one seriously thinks that Iran has not developed a nuclear capability. Its enrichment of uranium to 20% of the threshold can be for no other reason than military use—it has no plausible civilian use. The IAEA has previously said that Iran has 5 tonnes of low-enriched uranium of 3.5% and if enriched to 90% this would be enough fissile material for four to five nuclear bombs. Experts have predicted that once Iran acquires more than 150 kg of uranium enriched to 20%—by, say, early 2013—it would need just two weeks to produce enough fissile material for a bomb.

In short, the regime has the knowledge, technology and resources to create a nuclear bomb. Specifically, it has the high-explosive test site at Parchin, computer models, precision detonators and—most importantly—missile delivery systems. If plan B is sanctions, will they work, given that Iran has set its face against the west and a more peaceful negotiated settlement of this issue? People make much of the EU oil sanctions, and it is true that 18% of Iran’s exports are oil to the EU—450,000 barrels a day. Severe disruption to the oil industry would be problematic for the state, given that oil revenues are 60% of the Iranian economy, 80% of exports and, more importantly, 70% of government revenues. We know, however, that other countries would take up the slack. South Korea and Japan each take 10%, and China and India take 34% of Iran’s oil exports between them and would surely step in to buy the oil rejected by the EU.

Iran may discount oil prices, but it is estimated that even with a 10% drop in shipments, the reduction would be just $24 billion in a $480 billion economy. Sanctions will undermine state spending and perhaps cause a deficit of up to 2% of GDP, but Iran has a low debt to GDP ratio—only 9%, as against well over 100% for some EU countries, as we know. Raza Agha of the Royal Bank of Scotland says:

“The public finance impact seems manageable in the immediate future…given the bulwark of public sector deposits and other domestic financing options”.

Iran has also put its interest rates up for long-term bank deposits, so it has plenty of foreign reserves to see it through the difficulties of short and medium-term sanctions.

We can take options, including military action, off the table only if we are absolutely certain that sanctions will work and will force Iran back to the negotiating table. Sanctions may serve to destabilise the existing political regime in Iran. The west faces the most profound foreign policy problem since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, and for that reason we have to have courage, firmness of purpose and intellectual coherence in facing down this problem. Israel will perhaps attack Iran before the end of June. None of us wants war, but the alternative of a militaristic, jihadist country threatening its neighbours may be a lot worse.

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[Mr Stewart Jackson]

We are neglecting to acknowledge that Afghanistan was the incubator for a violent jihadist, Islamist ideology that resulted in the deaths of 3,000 men, women and children on 11 September 2001, and we should not casually disregard that.

[Mr Leigh]

Not for a moment does anyone in this House casually disregard it. I have always argued that there had to be a means, through special forces or even through the limited use of air strikes, to have controlled a Taliban Government. However, I am with the hon. Member for Newport West so far and, to an extent, I am also with him and with others who opposed the Libyan conflict. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), and I also accept the argument that we should not assume that deterrence would break down if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon. However, Iran’s having a nuclear weapon would be of a different geopolitical order from what we were confronting in Iraq. Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a calamity, but a pre-emptive strike at this stage would be calamitous. Therefore, we are in an extraordinarily dangerous position. I do not need to say this, because it is so obvious, but as a Government we need to urge our American and Israeli allies to proceed with extreme caution.

There has not been a great deal of debate so far about what is actually happening on the ground. I do not accept the argument that all the evidence is circumstantial. The Fordow site has enriched uranium to 20%. Enrichment of 90% to 95% is required for weapons, whereas only 5% is required for less sophisticated civil reactors and more sophisticated reactors run on 3% or less. There is no doubt that this enrichment is for military purposes. I am not necessarily arguing that Iran would take the final step to acquire a capability to deliver these nuclear weapons, but I believe that we are in a very dangerous position.

An attack would be extraordinarily difficult. It would not be simple like the Israeli attack on the Iraqi Osirak reactor in 1981. As we have heard, the Iranian programme is geographically, as well as functionally, extensive. It includes not 15 sites, as was mentioned earlier, but up to perhaps 30 sites, which could not be destroyed in a single attack—it would likely take an air war lasting several weeks to do that. In addition, as we know, the Qom facility was kept secret. I do not believe that Israel alone could stop Iran’s nuclear progress; only America could reliably destroy the nuclear capability. The conclusion must be that Israel does not have the capability to attack effectively; it could wound but not kill, which might be the most dangerous thing of all. Israel does not have the capability and America does not have the will, and if Israel were to attack, it is plausible that Iran would retaliate against not only Israel, but, much more worryingly, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is only 150 miles from Iran at its closest point and shares a maritime border with Iran along the length of the Gulf. There are only 258 troops from US central command in Saudi Arabia at the moment. General Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of the elite revolutionary guard, has threatened retaliation, stating:

“Any place where enemy offensive operations against the Islamic Republic of Iran originate will be the target of a reciprocal attack by the Guard’s fighting units”.

There is no doubt in my mind that if there were an attack on Iran it would elicit an immediate and perhaps devastating response against Saudi Arabia. Israeli planes would experience problems, even in attack, and would have to overfly a combination of Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia just to reach Iran.

Will economic sanctions work? We have to proceed on that basis, but they may not, which is why I come on to the second part of my speech. I am sorry that there is not a simple solution, but I cannot follow the hon. Member for Newport West in saying that we can do nothing—that we can accept the motion and rule out force and that somehow things will be all right. Yes, it is calamitous to attack, but it is even more of a calamity if that country acquires nuclear weapons.