Robert Halfon
Main Page: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)Department Debates - View all Robert Halfon's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House believes that the use of force against Iran would be wholly counterproductive and would serve only to encourage any development of nuclear weapons; and calls upon the Government to rule out the use of force against Iran and reduce tensions by redoubling diplomatic efforts.
May I start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for supporting my application to debate this subject today? Statements by the Government allow opportunities to ask a question, but rarely allow a thorough examination of the issue. I also thank those Members who supported me in calling for this debate. Many did not agree with the motion, but all felt that such a debate was long overdue, as is borne out by the number of people who have put in to speak this evening.
The debate is urgently required. With tough new sanctions in place and further ones threatened by Iran, with naval forces mustering in the Persian gulf and with state-sponsored terrorism ongoing inside and outside Iran, this might be the only opportunity for Back Benchers to discuss the topic before hostilities begin. Israel is contemplating an air strike, and we could be on the brink of a regional war. I called for today’s debate because I believe that we need a fresh approach. The sanctions and the sabre-rattling are yesterday’s failed policies, and the fact that we are once again on the brink of military conflict is testament to that failure. My motion calls on the Government—and, by implication, the west—to rule out the use of force in order to reduce tensions and bring us back from the brink of war and military conflict, and to redouble diplomatic efforts. That would give us time to reflect on some of the inconvenient truths that the west chooses to ignore, and on the need for a fresh approach.
I shall start by outlining some of the inconvenient truths. The catalyst for the latest round of condemnation was the report published by the International Atomic Energy Agency last November. The United States and the United Kingdom chose to see the report as evidence that Iran was building nuclear weapons, and further financial sanctions followed, which led directly to the storming of the British embassy in Tehran, inexcusable though that was. We should be careful about accepting such reports at face value, however. Close reading of the report reveals no smoking gun: there is no evidence of attempts to produce nuclear weapons, or of a decision to do so.
Mr Baron
I want to make some progress, then I will try to accommodate all colleagues who wish to intervene.
The fact that there is no evidence of attempts to produce nuclear weapons or of a decision to do so was confirmed by Peter Jenkins, the UK’s former permanent representative to the IAEA. Robert Kelley, a former director of the agency, highlighted the fact that the report contained only three items that referred to developments after 2004—the year in which the American intelligence services concluded that Iran had ceased its nuclear programme. Indeed, the agency spends 96% of a 14-page annexe reprising what was already known. I therefore ask the Foreign Secretary to highlight for the House today the paragraphs in the report that provide evidence of a nuclear weapons programme. He has referred to this matter many times, but I can see no such evidence in the report. Is he willing to highlight those paragraphs for the benefit of the House now? I am willing to take an intervention from him.
Mr Speaker
Order. We cannot have two Members standing up at the same time. The hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) is perfectly tall enough. We can see him; he has nothing to worry about.
Robert Halfon
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Is he aware that paragraph 43 of the IAEA report states that Iran worked
“on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components”?
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I congratulate again my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on securing the debate. Although I disagree with everything that he has said, I am grateful to him for challenging my views and those of others who oppose his motion.
I have three fundamental points to make. First, my hon. Friend said that there is no smoking gun, but I shall argue that there is a big smoking gun and that Iran is building a nuclear bomb; secondly, the nuclear programme is not a response to sanctions, as it was happening already; and, thirdly, we cannot be sure that if Iran had a bomb it would not use one either directly or through one of the many terrorist organisations that it supports.
It is worth examining those points in turn. First, is Iran building a nuclear bomb? The International Atomic Energy Agency report of November 2011 states clearly that Iran has acquired the knowledge, technology and resources to create a nuclear bomb within months. Its main findings, to quote section G, paragraph 43, are that Iran has procured
“nuclear related…equipment and materials”;
acquired
“nuclear weapons development information and documentation from a clandestine nuclear supply network”;
and worked
“on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components”.
Putting that aside for one minute, what do Arab nations in the region say? They are in no doubt about what the Iranians are planning. As far back as 2008, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia urged the United States to
“cut off the head of the snake”
by halting Tehran’s nuclear programme. Last week, I was in Kurdistan in northern Iraq. The Kurds know all too well what a nuclear Iran would be like and are incredibly concerned about the implications. That is what is at stake in the region.
Nuclear ambition was not a response to sanctions; Iran already had it. We cannot appease Iran or hope for moderates to emerge within the regime. The United Nations sanctions began in 2006 in response to Iran’s refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. As far back as 2002, the National Council of Resistance of Iran revealed Iran’s secret nuclear programme, much of which was later admitted to by the Iranian leadership on state television. Iran has repeatedly dismissed calls to negotiate. President Ahmadinejad now insists that his nuclear programme is unstoppable.
The only time when Iran suspended uranium enrichment, co-operated with the UN and signed the full non-proliferation treaty was in October 2003. Why did it do that at that time? Because a quarter of a million western troops had just toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq and were close to Iran’s western border. As soon as that threat diminished, Iran returned to its nuclear programme, which has led us to the point that we are at today.
Thirdly, we cannot be sure that Iran would not use a nuclear bomb. Iranian leaders have made numerous statements calling for the destruction of the state of Israel and the Jewish people. Just last week, the Iranian website Alef published an article by Khamenei’s strategy chief, Alireza Forghani, detailing plans for the extermination of Israel. As British newspapers have reported, the dossier even pinpoints the housing estates with the highest concentration of Jewish people. That piece, which is now being run on most state-owned sites in Iran, states that because of the United States’ presidential election, the time for Iran to strike is now.
Last week, Iran’s Ministry of Defence announced that it had tested a two-stage ballistic missile that could deliver a nuclear bomb. Earlier this month, the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel said that he had intelligence showing that that missile has a range of 6,200 km—enough to hit the United States and the United Kingdom.
I have described Iran before in this House as the new Soviet Union of the middle east: it represses its people at home and has expansionist aims abroad. It is widely recognised as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. It provides support to insurgent groups in Iraq and Afghanistan that have attacked and killed British troops. A nuclear Iran does not just mean a nuclear Iran; it means a nuclear Hezbollah, a nuclear Hamas and so forth. As the former Iranian President, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, said, the
“application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel”.
The extremists in charge of Iran see their conflict as not just with their neighbours, but with the west. That is why they threatened to bomb Turkey last year. In 2006, Hassan Abbasi, the head of the Iranian doctrinal centre for strategic studies, said:
“Britain’s demise is on our agenda”.
He added:
“We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization…we must make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles.”
In conclusion, the Foreign Secretary has described the Iranian nuclear threat as the new cold war. The situation may be worse than that because in the past, nuclear deterrents worked because of mutual assured destruction—MAD—and the clear lines of communication. However, for MAD to work, one has to be sane and the Iranian regime has shown itself not to be with its constant human rights abuses, its attack on the British embassy and its support for terrorism. Let that be a lesson for the free world.
As I have mentioned, I was in Kurdistan last week near the Iranian border. I met Iranian Kurds who are persecuted by the Iranian regime. They knew the reality of a nuclear Iran, and they said that the only way that things would change was if there was regime change there. They asked why the west had not done more to support democratic and opposition movements, which would have made some difference and perhaps helped to facilitate regime change.
Finally, I wish to quote Niall Ferguson, who wrote recently in Newsweek:
“War is an evil. But sometimes a preventative war can be a lesser evil than a policy of appeasement. The people who don’t yet know that are the ones still in denial about what a nuclear-armed Iran would end up costing us all.”