Middle East: Security

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman mixes the inherent right, under article 51 of the UN charter, to defend ourselves from threats against our citizens or others, and an unchallengeable sovereignty that means a country cannot take action to defend itself from a threat in part of another country. We mostly do it by getting in touch with the other country to have someone arrested or dealt with, when there is a direct threat, but that is not always an option, depending on imminence.

As I said in my statement, the number of times that US and UK coalition forces have been attacked in Iraq in the last few months, with no action being taken—indeed, an American lost their life—has been growing. There have been 14 attacks, with 32 rockets fired in the last one. In the end, it is the responsibility of any nation to make the difficult choice to balance sovereignty, intelligence and the duty to defend its citizens. Nations have to make that choice sometimes.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend makes a proper case for the British Government’s position, but will he go further and talk about what he is doing to make sure this does not become a cliff edge to war but is instead the low point of a tick that leads to progress? We should work with allies such as Kuwait, Qatar and Oman, perhaps, to reach out to Iran and assure it that we do not wish a conflict and that what we wish instead is change to a policy that has led to the deaths not only of far too many Brits but of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Syria and Iraq. It is for them that we are standing up, and it is for them that we want a change.

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend is right to focus on how we can broaden both the network of diplomatic pressure on Iran and, in a sense, the support for Iraq, the United States and other countries engaged in this area. If I remember rightly, Iran used to have remarkable links with Japan, for example. We are exploring all the possible levers. With my colleagues in the Foreign Office and, indeed, at No. 10, including the Prime Minister, we are working as broadly and as fast as we can to find a way, using diplomacy through people with good access to the very heart of the Iranian Government, to reach a place where we can persuade the Iranians that retaliation is not in their best interest, while offering them a way out so that we can get back to a more stable middle east.