Iran

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Baron]

If I am not going to get an intervention from the Foreign Secretary, I shall take one from the Labour Back Benches.

[Mike Gapes]

I am grateful. The hon. Gentleman refers to lost opportunities. Does he agree that the Iranian regime was at fault in rejecting President Obama’s initiative when he first came to office? Is that not a sign that the regime in Tehran is afraid of international engagement and is pursuing this course relentlessly?

[Mr Baron]

I am the first to agree that Iran was completely wrong on President Obama’s offer. Let me make it clear that I am not an apologist for Iran. No one can agree with its human rights record, its sponsoring of state terrorism or the storming of our embassy—all are terribly wrong—but they are not arguments for military intervention; they do not justify war. Rather, I suggest that no one’s hands are clean in this region, including our own, particularly after the invasion of Iraq on what turned out to be a false premise. Opportunities have been missed on both sides. I would have thought there can be little doubt about that.

Let us get to the nub of the issue and think the unthinkable. Let us assume, despite the lack of substantive evidence, that Iran is moving towards the option of nuclear capability. Hon. Members will be fully aware that there is a world of difference between nuclear capability and possessing nuclear weapons. This is perhaps understandable. We in the west underestimate the extent to which status is important in that part of the world. The reason Saddam Hussein did not deny possessing weapons of mass destruction, despite the fact that he did not have them, was that it was in his interest not to deny it. He had, after all, failed in his invasion of Iran. Iran’s insecurity is also understandable. Those who view the map from Tehran’s point of view will see that she is surrounded by nuclear powers: Russia, Pakistan, a United States naval presence, and Israel. All those powers contribute to Iran’s feeling of encirclement.

I am very conscious, as the House will be, of the argument that if Iran develops nuclear weapons, that will lead to a nuclear arms race in the region but without the safety mechanisms that existed during the cold war, which in itself could lead to a nuclear escalation. However, I do not accept that argument. There is no reason why the theory of nuclear deterrence to which the west adheres should not be equally valid in other parts and regions of the world. Paul Pillar, the CIA’s national intelligence officer for the middle east between 2000 and 2005, recently wrote that there was

“nothing in the record of behavior by the Islamic Republic that suggests irrationality”.

That view was reinforced by Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, last year.

India and Pakistan have fought wars, yet both have shown nuclear restraint. As the House is well aware, only one country has ever used nuclear weapons in anger. Furthermore, the view that an Iranian nuclear capability would start a nuclear arms race in the region does not take into account the possibility that regional allies of the west will opt to shelter under a US nuclear umbrella. That happens in Japan and in South Korea.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hague]

I read out some quite interesting paragraphs from the IAEA report. My hon. Friend should also consider the evidence that is now coming out of Iran saying that it will use its expanding stockpile of near-20% enriched uranium to make fuel for the Tehran research reactor. That reactor is designed to produce medical isotopes, but its capacity is being expanded to produce near-20% enriched uranium to levels far beyond what would be required for that purpose. On that basis, one would have to be extraordinarily trusting and innocent in world affairs to believe that this programme had entirely peaceful purposes and that no possible provision was being made for the development of nuclear weapons. My hon. Friend must remember, too, that the regime deliberately concealed—we do not know for how long, because western nations revealed it—the construction of the secret underground facilities at Qom. It has a strong track record of deliberately concealing aspects of the nuclear programme, and that might lead him to be just a little bit suspicious about its purposes.

[Mike Gapes]

Will the Foreign Secretary make it clear to the Iranian people that we are opposed not to Iran having nuclear technology but to the breach of the non-proliferation treaty? The regime could have accepted the Russian proposal on Bushehr, for example, which would have resolved these issues.

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman is right. I will make that clear when I come to that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. He rightly says, first, that Ahmadinejad will not be able to stay in power, because he is term limited; this is the end of his term as President and someone else will emerge in the next elections. My hon. Friend is also right about maintaining the momentum of the Arab spring. We must double our efforts on maintaining the momentum on the street. I approve of BBC Persian and I approve of doing much more work to support, externally and internally, opposition groups on the streets of Iran. I have not forgotten the lesson of the cold war, where Poland and the printing presses made so much difference. We should bring those lessons into Iran as much as possible.

We need to maintain the momentum of the Arab spring, although Persia is not Arab, and be consistent in Bahrain and Syria. If we unlock Bahrain and Syria, I would pledge that, in that instance, Iran would start to turn and those middle classes and those on the streets would begin to see a difference. In Bahrain, where the Shi’a majority rose up against a Crown prince, we saw a rather lukewarm response from the west, but it was different in Libya and Syria. Let us be consistent, and push that momentum, which will help to make a difference to solving the problem.

On the diplomatic track, I am delighted that the Foreign Secretary has reiterated that we have not broken off diplomatic relations with Iran. I urge the Foreign Office to examine whether we can send a diplomat back to Iran. We do not have to open up the embassy—we did not break relations. We need to be there. The Union Jack means something to many people on the street, and it means something to the opposition. The embassy is well used to co-ordinated protests, stones, and streets being called Bobby Sands avenue next to it as a reminder, apparently, of British imperialism. The Foreign Office used to stand for the Union Jack around the world, and we should be a bit stronger than that.

[Mike Gapes]

Is there not a big difference between what happened to British embassies in previous years and what was carried out, co-ordinated by elements in the regime, just a few months ago? It is not just the naming of streets but the ransacking of diplomats’ homes and of the embassy complex.

[Mr Wallace]

I fully agree that it is very different. I do not propose that we open the embassy as if nothing happened. If we had a diplomat in another embassy, as we have done before, we could provide visas. The strength is to open and maintain transport links to and from Iran so that people can see what is going on in Iran. Iranians could come and see what is going on in the real world outside, away from some of the manipulation. If we could secure a consulate section in another embassy, that would help.

Every protest outside the embassy was co-ordinated by the regime, and that has been the case for 30 years. It is not new—most of this is not new. In dealing with Iran, we have to know them as well as they know themselves if we are to secure a diplomatic solution. Trying to do that in isolation, or trying to do it with the E3 plus 3 that sometimes works, but sometimes does not, depending on the mood of China and Russia, is one of our biggest challenges. Most of the sanctions that have been mentioned are unilateral, and are not United Nations sanctions. It would be worrying to set off down that path if we did not remember that, at the end of the day, if we were going to take the next step to military action, we did not have UN sanctions. I urge the Government, who are doing the right thing—the Foreign Secretary made the position clear—to ensure that we never stop the effort to achieve a peaceful resolution to this problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), and I endorse entirely what he said about the importance of the BBC World Service. I congratulate the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), a fellow member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, on initiating the debate, but I will not support him in the Lobby. I will support the well drafted and measured wording of the amendment, not because I believe that we should be engaged in military action against Iran, but because I want to stop military action against Iran and a war that would be a precursor to a conflagration in the region.

I am concerned about the potential consequences of the current crisis. I recently held discussions with a senior figure in the Pakistani Government, who said that the consequences for Afghanistan and Pakistan of a conflict involving Iran would be dire. Anybody who has been, as I have, to Herat, the Afghan city close to Iran, and seen how calm and peaceful the area is will recognise that it is no accident; it is because that border between Afghanistan and Iran is stable and calm, and that would not necessarily be the case if there were a conflict involving Iran.

Similarly, Iran’s borders are very complicated. Reference has already been made to some Gulf states, including Bahrain, but other neighbours such as Qatar and Kuwait are in range of Iranian missiles, and the Iranians would not even need to send missiles; they could send people with bombs in bags or in suitcases.

Reference has been made also to Iraq.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

rose—

[Mike Gapes]

I will give way in a moment.

With the Defence Committee several years ago, I visited the KBOT terminal at the top of the gulf of Hormuz, just south of Basra, from where, along with the ABOT terminal, most of the Iraqi oil from Basra leaves. That was a few weeks after motor launches from Iran had set off bombs underneath the terminal to try to destroy it. The area is now much more strongly protected, but the potential for a conflagration involving Iran, leading not necessarily to a blockage of the strait of Hormuz, but at least to attacks on facilities, urban centres or bases in the area, is great. We as an international community therefore need to be careful and measured and to send out clear signals, whether in relation to mad speeches by Newt Gingrich or to the Israeli Government, that the use of language referring to military action is not necessarily the best solution to the crisis.

I can understand why politicians in Israel are worried. I would be worried if not just the President of a country but a succession of its leaders had said that they wanted to wipe out my state, which they regarded as a cancer, but we need also to point out, as senior figures in Israel have, that military action by Israel will not be in its own long-term interests regarding its relations with the Arab world.

[Bob Stewart]

Military action would be extremely difficult. There are at least 10 different nuclear sites in Iran, and trying to obliterate them would be almost impossible for Israel alone, so military action by Israel alone is probably very unlikely or, at the very least, unwise.

[Mike Gapes]

I agree, and that allows me to move on to what I think is actually happening.

Somebody once said that war was diplomacy by other means, but we have a third way, which is Stuxnet, targeted assassinations and unexplained events. I am not sure whether we can attribute blame or responsibility in any particular direction, but it is quite clear that over recent months and years various things have happened to aspects of Iran’s nuclear programme, and events have occurred which might indicate that, without having a war, attempts are being made to delay the nuclear programme, the development of centrifuges and other things.

If the Iranian regime is really determined to get nuclear weapons, and I fear that elements of it are, it will do so at whatever cost, but others in Iran, including some in the regime, recognise that there are benefits to be gained not by acquiring nuclear weapons but by saying, “We are a proud country and we want to be noticed, so we will give the impression that we are moving in that direction so that people notice us, states in the Gulf region become fearful of us and the rest of the world says, ‘Iran is a country that matters.’”

The Foreign Affairs Committee went to Iran in 2007. Mention has been made of its chief nuclear negotiator, Mr Jalili. I was involved in an hour-long exchange with him in a meeting. It was a fascinating exchange, because he started off by explaining that having a nuclear weapon was un-Islamic and forbidden. We went on to have a long discussion about the additional protocol, the non-proliferation treaty and various issues to do with the IAEA. I came away realising that he was very intelligent and calculating. He must be a tough person to negotiate with. I was not involved in real negotiations. Speaking with me was like practice for him before he dealt with the Ministers. It was apparent that Iran is clear in the way that it uses the arguments.

I suspect, as the Foreign Affairs Committee said in 2007, that Iran will at some point get to breakout capability. However, as was said earlier, that does not necessarily mean that it will have a nuclear weapon. It will have the capability to get a nuclear weapon quickly when it gets to that technological position. However, it might choose not to go that far, but to have just the potential, because that will make people notice it. Iran is a country that wants to be noticed.

The tragedy is that Iran has a young, dynamic population that wants to engage with the rest of the world. Anybody who has been to Iran knows that. People come up to visitors in the street and talk to them openly. They criticise their Government openly in a way that does not happen in all other countries in the region; and yet, at the same time, Iran has a theocratic regime at its cap. I do not think that it matters who succeeds Ahmadinejad, because he is not the power in Iran. The power is Ayatollah Khamenei, who is the supreme leader. It is he who rejected the approach from President Obama. It is he who determines where the political process goes, including who can run as a candidate and who can stand for election. Iran has a quasi-pluralistic and quasi-democratic system, but with a theocratic cap. Somehow or other, that system will have to change. Revolutions run out of steam. At some point, the voice of the Iranian people will come through. We have to be clever and not undermine that in the way that we handle this crisis.