Iran’s Influence in the Middle East

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) on his speech, which painted a terrifying picture of the activities of Iran in the middle east, so this is a timely debate. I would also like to mention my entry in the register of interests concerning a recent visit to Israel and the west bank. On that visit, almost everyone our group met commented on the real alarm felt in Israel about Iran’s increasingly assertive regional ambitions. As the debate has shown, that anxiety is by no means confined to one country; Iran and its proxies are now heavily involved in conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

I agree with my hon. Friend that Iran is now the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, providing financial and material support to extremist Islamist terrorist groups throughout the middle east, including Hezbollah, Hamas and insurgent groups in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Iranian Government also enjoy a long-standing relationship with al-Qaeda, to which they provide travel assistance and, to some degree, safe haven—a number of AQ leaders are believed to be living in Iran. The country continues to be blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force, the global body charged with preventing money laundering and terror finance.

We have heard this morning that Hezbollah boasts of the funding it receives from Iran. It is believed to have amassed a stock of about 150,000 rockets, including hundreds of long-range Iranian-made missiles capable of striking civilian targets around the region. Clearly, too, Iran’s notorious al-Quds force and the special forces unit of the Iranian revolutionary guard are playing a key role in assisting President Assad in Syria.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is giving a powerful analysis of Iran’s malign influence. Does she agree that part of the opportunity presented to Iran arises from the catastrophic failure of western policy, particularly in Syria and in not addressing issues over the past decade? That failure has tipped the balance of power and allowed Iran and Russia to operate with impunity in the middle east.

[Mrs Villiers]

I certainly agree that part of the explanation for the situation is the failure of western policy in the middle east over recent years. Now people across the region are suffering the consequences.

Iran is thought to have about 10,000 operatives in Syria and to have spent several billion dollars supporting the Assad regime. Many throughout the middle east are suffering as a result of Iranian involvement in funding and arming hard-line and extremist groups, but the House should be in no doubt of the suffering that the Iranian Government inflict on their own people: the regime’s human rights record is appalling, and it is a matter of serious regret that the Iran nuclear deal includes nothing at all on human rights.

Apparently, nearly 700 people were put to death by the Iranian regime in a single six-month period in 2015, which is equivalent to more than three every day. According to Human Rights Watch, Iran leads the world in executing children. It is believed that at least 73 juvenile offenders were executed between 2005 and 2015. Members of minority faiths such as the Baha’is have been subjected to arbitrary arrest, imprisonment and unjustified executions, and of course women in Iran face systemic discrimination by a legal system that views them as inferior to men.

Women are required by law to obey their husbands; they have no rights to divorce; if their husband divorces them, their children can be taken from them; and the Office of the Supreme Leader has even issued a statement forbidding women from riding bicycles in public. In April last year the Iranian Government deployed 7,000 so-called morality agents, whose task was to punish women for wearing the hijab incorrectly and for other activities deemed to be un-Islamic and unlawful.

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs Villiers]

I am slightly short of time, so I will not.

According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, about 2,000 women a day are arrested for failing to comply with the compulsory dress code. In 2014 there was a spate of acid attacks against young Iranian women by people apparently motivated by what they viewed as an insufficiently rigorous approach to compliance with the rules on dress. The response of the regime was lacklustre, and those responsible have not been caught. Furthermore, the UN special rapporteur on Iran recently reported that women continue to be sentenced to death by stoning.

The nuclear deal means that our country’s relationship with Iran is somewhat less acrimonious than it has been in the past, but we should never forget that its regime is deeply repressive and brutalises much of its population. Iran’s pursuit of dominance in the region is a continuing source of instability and its support for terrorist groupings means that it is responsible for countless lives lost and families bereaved. I sincerely hope that one day the people of Iran will find a way to free themselves of the regime’s grip.