Iran’s Influence in the Middle East

Debate between Matthew Offord and Graham P Jones

Wednesday 22nd March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

This is a really important debate. Following on from the intervention by my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr Spellar), would the hon. Gentleman also include Pyongyang and Yemen on his list of Iranian spheres of influence?

[Dr Offord]

I will do; if I can get to my speech, I hope I will be able to elucidate some comments about the places that the hon. Gentleman mentions.

The Iranian leadership has cited Syria as being Iran’s 35th province, with President Assad’s Alawite minority-led regime being a crucial buffer between the influence of Saudi Arabia and the United States, so it can be of no surprise to any of us that Iran has chosen to involve itself in the conflict in Syria.

The response of the Syrian regime to the Arab spring was a brutal one. Since 2011, thousands of civilians and armed militia have been killed by Government forces in Syria. Such action has prompted many Syrian army officers to join the opposition movement and form the Free Syrian Army. With the armed resistance increasing and looking ever more likely to topple the Assad regime, the clerical regime in Iran began deploying its military capability in the country. The senior commander of the Rasoulallah division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Hamadani, was dispatched to Syria. That man was responsible for operations in the Iran-Iraq war, as well as for suppressing the 2009 uprising in Iran. He decided that the forces sent by Iran to Syria were primarily to be at command level, as evidenced by the capture of 48 IRGC commanders two months later. That meant that infantry were needed, and the creation of Daesh occurred as a result.

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry is on the record as saying:

“ISIS was created by Assad releasing 1,500 prisoners from jail and Maliki releasing 1,000 people in Iraq who were put together as a force of terror types.”

[Dr Offord]

I hope to come on to that point, but I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s assertion. I believe that the Iranian nuclear deal was a missed opportunity. Not only did it not address issues surrounding terrorism, it also failed to consider human rights in Iran—something that is very important not only to myself and other hon. Members, but also to many of my constituents, some of whom are in the Public Gallery today.

The Iranian regime made use of its experience in suppression and control by working with the Syrian regime to achieve two objectives. The first was called the infiltration project, which was designed to instil division and dissent in the opposition; the second was the knapsack project, which was designed to bring about armed clashes between the groups and the tribes.

Although the IRGC’s Quds force remains the primary extraterritorial fighting force, and the primary force in Syria, IRGC ground forces, as well as those of the regular Iranian army, have also been employed in the conflict. In addition to those troops, more than 70,000 non-Iranian and Iranian forces have been deployed by the IRGC to fight in Syria. According to IRGC reports, that exceeds the 50,000 Syrian forces. That activity required money that became available at the right time—as my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) said, through the nuclear deal.

One of my principal concerns about the Iranian nuclear deal was that it unfroze huge resources that allowed terror to be funded in the middle east region. It appears that that is what is occurring. Over the last five years, Tehran has budgeted about $100 billion for the conflict, under cover from Khamenei’s office. That money has been spent on the purchase of military weaponry and on Syria’s own military expenses—$1 billion is spent solely on the salaries of the forces affiliated with the IRGC, including military forces, militias and Shi’ite networks.

Turning to another area of conflict in the middle east, we can also see the influence of Iran in Yemen.

[Graham Jones]

The hon. Gentleman may have noticed that in January—I think it was on 17 January—the UN panel of experts reported an update on Yemen. One of the sections in that report is entitled the

“large-scale supply of weapons from the Islamic Republic of Iran to Yemen”.

Does the hon. Gentleman not think that Iran is now taking a larger and increasingly influential role in Yemen and affecting that conflict?

[Dr Offord]

I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I hope to go on to give some examples of where weaponry has gone into Yemen and how it is being used against allied forces—both the UK and the US.

Iran operates a complex network of weapon-smuggling routes throughout the region in defiance of four Security Council resolutions, which are resolutions 1737, 1747, 1803 and 1835. In October 2016, Reuters reported that Iran had significantly increased weapons transfers to the Houthis, the militia fighting the Saudi-backed Government in Yemen. US and western officials said that, based on intelligence they had seen, the frequency of arms transfers on known overland smuggling routes had increased notably.

According to sources, the transfers have included short-range missiles and small arms as well as anti-ship missiles, explosives, money and personnel. Much of the smuggling activity has been through Oman, which neighbours Yemen.

The US navy disclosed in April 2016 that it had confiscated an Iranian weapons cache headed to the Houthis in Yemen from a small fishing craft in the Arabian sea, seizing 1,500 Kalashnikov rifles, 200 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 21 .50-caliber machine guns. That was the fourth such seizure by the US navy in the region since September 2015. US officials have said that they are looking into whether components of missiles used in attempted strikes by the Houthis against a US warship and a United Arab Emirates vessel might have benefited from Iranian parts or originated in Iran. General Joseph Votel, the commander of the US military command centre, said he suspected an Iranian role in arming the Houthis, and noted that Iran was one of the possible suppliers of the type of shore-based missile technology seen in Yemen.