Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Programme

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing this timely debate. I do not agree with all the points he made, but he made some important points about, for instance, Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium being among the considerations the negotiators must take on board.

The news that the Foreign Secretary brought to the House yesterday about progress in the negotiations, or the talks about talks, and about Foreign Minister Zarif proving to be someone whom western powers could do business with, was very welcome. We should reflect for a minute on how far we have come in a year and a half. I was looking back on some notes from May last year, and we were talking then about the risk of strikes on Iran and of a regional war being sparked by preventive strikes against Iran by the United States or by conflict breaking out over the strait of Hormuz. The situation now is not quite unrecognisable, but it has moved a considerable distance.

One crucial change is the election in the summer of President Rouhani. We may think that the electoral process was flawed, and we may think that the constitution of Iran is flawed and still gives too much power to the theocracy, but the election was undoubtedly genuinely contested, and it has undoubtedly changed the political landscape. We must therefore be a little wary of doing a reverse of the Whig interpretation of history: nobody naively believes that things will always get better, but we must never fall into the trap of thinking things can never get better. We must take advantage of the situation when someone such as President Rouhani is elected, because he is at least saying many of the right things, and he appears to be acting in many of the right ways.

In its statements over the past six months on President Rouhani and the situation in Iran, the Foreign Office has been very cautious and guarded, and it has talked about actions speaking louder than words. I have sometimes found that a little frustrating, and we could have seen a bit more enthusiasm for the reforming faction in Iran. However, if I am criticising the Foreign Office for going a bit too slowly, and others are criticising it for going too fast, it has perhaps got things just about right.

We should applaud the diplomatic efforts that have been made by British, international and, in this case, European Union diplomats. I was struck by the Foreign Secretary’s praise of Baroness Ashton in the House yesterday. She is, as a Brit, demonstrating not only the great British tradition of diplomacy, but the potential for the European Union to play a positive role in world diplomacy, not displacing, but complementing, national diplomacy. That is very positive.

There are three points that I would like to make. The first builds on my point about seeing the positive potential, rather than always accentuating the negative. I would ask the Foreign Office to be robust not only in pursuing the positive avenue of negotiations, but in standing up to anyone we traditionally think of as an ally who might try to stall the negotiations or prevent them from making too much progress.

There are two countries that I am particularly concerned about. One is Saudi Arabia. The Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, made an interesting comment last month. He said that following Washington’s failure to strike Syria and its entering into nuclear talks with Iran, there would be a major shift in Saudi Arabia’s relations with it. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s perspective on American-Saudi relations and on our own relationships with Saudi Arabia, in the context of the Iranian nuclear talks. I hope we will not allow Saudi Arabia to stall our progress in this area.

Through the channel of this debate, I would tell the Saudi Government that if they look back to the 1990s, to the presidencies of Presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami in Iran, they will see that there were much more cordial relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. It has been only since the election of Ahmadinejad in 2005 and then the coming to power of King Abdullah that the two countries have got into a regional cold war and have almost been fighting proxy battles as rival regional powers from Bahrain to Syria to other places across the middle east. That is regrettable, and they should perhaps realise that the presidency of President Rouhani offers a path back to more constructive engagement.

Like the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), I also have concerns about Israel. We have not heard very constructive comments from Prime Minister Netanyahu about the E3 plus 3 talks. He has expressed real fear that they will result in a deal that

“will not work for Israel”.

However, Israel must also see its long-term interests. Surely, the most positive thing for Israel would be a process that ultimately leads towards a nuclear-free middle east and certainly one that has a realistic prospect of achieving a nuclear-free Iran.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I apologise to the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) for not congratulating him on securing the debate. Does the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) not think that the situation between the Israeli Government and the Palestinians is linked to this issue? That must be part of a solution in the middle east, because we cannot have a settlement with Iran in isolation. Does the hon. Gentleman also not think that the settlements Israel has been building have thrown some difficulties in the way of the road map to peace? Finally, despite what the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said, there were demonstrations two or three years ago in Iran, and the opposition came close to winning the election. Internally, that may be motivating the regime a lot more than the hon. Gentleman suggested.

[Jim Sheridan (in the Chair)]

Order. Can we keep interventions short? I hope to call the Front-Bench speakers at 3.40 pm.

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman makes some important points, although we are also seeing positive engagement by Palestine and Israel in peace talks, so that is another area where we can accentuate the positive. My point is that we should be clear with our traditional allies in the region that we want to pursue this process with Iran robustly.

My second point relates to what the hon. Gentleman has just said: this has to be a regional process. I would therefore like to ask the Minister what the status is of the proposed plan to move towards talks on a nuclear-free middle east. That plan should include Israel as well as Iran. It could be revived in the new, more constructive atmosphere that is emerging. It might also connect with other disputes in the region. That plan was on the table quite seriously, and I would like to hear where the Foreign Office thinks the talks now lie.

My third and final point relates to the non-proliferation treaty. It is something of a rich irony that the E3 plus 3 could also be described as the N5 plus 1. Here we have six countries lecturing Iran on nuclear proliferation, but five of them hold nuclear weapons themselves—only Germany does not. It would send a positive signal if we discussed our own willingness to look at the nuclear threshold. There are countries around the world that have stopped short of it, even though, as in Japan’s case, they probably have the technological capacity to step over it. We are asking Iran to stop at the nuclear threshold or, ideally, to step well back from it, so perhaps we should be constructive in looking at whether we can step down the nuclear ladder; indeed, it is technically our obligation as a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to look at progress towards disarmament. I will not get sidetracked into a debate on Trident like-for-like replacement, but the Liberal Democrat position is clearly that we could make a constructive contribution in that regard. I do not expect Ministers immediately to leap up to support that, but they should perhaps reflect on what we can do as part of a global process.

I agree with the hon. Member for Kettering that the talks must be robust and real, and that there must be a real negotiation that puts real demands on Iran. However, at the same time, we should reflect on the fact that all nuclear weapons are dangerous, and there are probably people in every country who are mad or bad enough to use them. The ideal that President Obama has set out of a world free from nuclear weapons and of a global nuclear disarmament process actually getting under way in the 21st century is one we in this country should do everything we can to support through our fast-improving relations with Iran and through our own attitude to nuclear armaments.

[Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)]

I welcome the debate, which my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) is to be commended on securing. He is right about the importance of the issue, which is on a different scale from other issues that we are involved in, in the middle east or elsewhere, important though those are.

I remind the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) that the debate is about Iran, not Israel or Saudi Arabia—still less about nuclear disarmament. Disarmament combined with unreciprocated concessions to aggressive regimes did not always guarantee a brilliant outcome in the previous century. Iran is an aggressive regime. I agree with the comments of the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) about the Iranian people and culture, which I distinguish from the regime. Many people in Iran are oppressed by it, and notwithstanding the comments of the hon. Member for Cheltenham, it is still a long way from being a democracy. It was observed that there were 3,000 possible candidates, although I was told that 678 presidential candidates were disqualified by Ayatollah Khomeini as ideologically unsound. Only six were allowed to proceed—one of whom is now President Rouhani. I agree with my right hon. and hon. Friends that an approach from any source in Iran must be engaged with constructively, and I support their way of proceeding. However, I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering that we must not look through rose-tinted spectacles at President Rouhani.

[Martin Horwood]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that even that flawed electoral process makes Iran rather more democratic than Saudi Arabia, which we traditionally treat as a close ally?

[Mr Clappison]

It is nothing like the democracy that I would like the Iranian people to have and that many of them would want. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering that we should not see President Rouhani as a completely new broom. We must not be naive. He has been part of the present regime since its inception and has held high office in it. He has been involved in its nuclear negotiations in the past, and, as my hon. Friend showed in the quotation he used, has stalled and used other devices to further Iran’s nuclear intentions.

I believe that it is the resolute intention of the Iranian regime to acquire nuclear weapons. Why on earth would it have put itself through what it has gone through for so many years—sanctions, international opprobrium, all that has happened in the United Nations and all the economic problems that have been caused for Iran—if not because it wanted nuclear weapons come what may? Is the international community getting it all wrong, and have all the leaders over the years been completely mistaken? I think not. We must accept that the Iranian regime is determined to have nuclear weapons. We should not let them fall into its hands. No matter who else may or may not have them, that regime has demonstrated beyond peradventure its aggressive intent in the region and throughout the world, through the export of terrorism by proxy to other countries in the region, including Lebanon and Syria; through its involvement in propping up the Syrian regime now; through its export of worldwide terrorism against Israel and Israeli citizens; and through its leaders’ aggressive statements in the past. We can have no doubts about the nature of the regime and the fact that we should not let nuclear weapons fall into those hands.

It is right, however, to engage with the regime, and I support the Government’s approach, but we must take an exacting and resolute approach in negotiations. We must not exaggerate, as I think the hon. Member for Cheltenham was in danger of doing, any progress that has been made already. We are only at the interim stage and have not even concluded an interim agreement. Let us not rush to say that there is agreement before it happens. We need to apply exacting and rigorous conditions to the regime and should take the view that if there is any doubt or anything unsatisfactory in any negotiations it is better to have no agreement than a bad agreement.

If the Government can reach an agreement that leaves Iran nowhere near the threshold of holding nuclear weapons, that rolls back the Iranian nuclear programme and that creates a framework in which peace can be achieved in the region, they deserve to be encouraged. They must have high expectations and I encourage them to be rigorous and, if necessary, cynical about the regime. In the past it has played for time, stalled and tried to reach a certain level. Iran must go back to the position it was in before it started its nuclear armaments programme; it must dismantle it and put itself far from the threshold of having nuclear weapons.

I agreed with some of what the hon. Member for Islington North said, although not all of it. Human rights are human rights anywhere in the region; but human rights in Iran are at stake. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends, if they get a chance, to raise the issue of human rights with Iran. The regime has an unenviable record on human rights in many respects. I have in the past taken up the issue of persecution of Christians by the Iranian regime, which included death or prison sentences merely for practising their faith. We should not go into the negotiations with any illusions about the regime.