Yemen

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Graham P Jones

Tuesday 11th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. These are real threats, and I am not denying them. Of course we would not put up with a rain of Iranian missiles falling on London, as they are today far too often falling on Riyadh and other towns in the region. We would respond. It is right that the Saudi armed forces are able to respond. I do not question their right of self-defence; I question their tactics. That is where we have to help them see the way.

The truth is that Iran is a direct threat to the Emirates and Saudi Arabia. It is the most extraordinary regime we see today. It is exporting violence. It is deliberately capturing and holding British citizens hostage. It is abusing its own people, murdering hundreds, torturing thousands and exporting violence into countries such as Bahrain, Saudi and, most obviously, Syria. We know that Iran is a threat. We see it, we feel it and we hear it all the time. We now know that Iran is looking to expand its area of operation into the political sphere, copying the Russians.

[Graham P. Jones]

On the list of actors on this particular stage, would the hon. Gentleman also include Hezbollah? It sends its commanders and troops into the country on fast boats from that Iranian ship parked in the Gulf. To follow up on the question asked by my friend from the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), part of the problem we face is that the Iranians are bringing the rockets in on long trucks. The large rockets are taken to market squares, tilted upright into a vertical firing position within 15 minutes, and the Saudi Arabians have a tremendous problem in identifying them and making a decision in minutes about what to do. Hezbollah is involved in that. We almost have a pseudo-terrorist operation. Human shields are becoming a weapon of war in Yemen.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Gentleman demonstrates why he was such an appropriate choice for chairmanship of the Committee on Arms Export Controls. His knowledge and expertise are second to none. He makes a clear point, and he is absolutely right: it is not one side “wrong” and one side “good”; two sides are behaving abominably. Iran’s proxies in Hezbollah, who we see fighting today in Syria, are murdering thousands. We see them fighting alongside Russian forces today, seeking to bring death to hundreds of thousands in Idlib. We also see them fighting in Yemen, trying to slaughter others and trying to further the deaths of innocents.

I return to the point I will dwell upon and hammer home, because it is the one that fundamentally matters, not only to us, as representatives of the British people, but to others, as representatives of their own peoples seeking a peaceful outcome for the conflicts we see today in the middle east. The point is that this war must end, but before it ends and as it ends, it must be conducted legitimately. Does that mean we need to ensure that Saudi Arabia has the missile defence system to resist the rocket attacks that the hon. Gentleman spoke about so clearly? Yes, it does. It means we must recognise that the Saudi Government have a right to self-defence and weaponry that secures that self-defence. Does it mean we should ban them from buying anything? No, it does not. They have the right to defend themselves in the north, where they are facing very serious threats and the possibility of even more serious threats sponsored by Iran through Iraq and Syria. What does it mean for Saudi Arabia and the Emirates? As I have said time and again, they are friends, allies and partners of ours, on whose economies much of our business is based. Let us not forget that energy underpins our economy. It matters to us all.

What is it that we need to do? My friend the Chair of the International Development Committee has been clear, and he is absolutely right. We need to encourage Saudi Arabia and the Emirates to reach out to the international community, the United Nations and the lawful bodies to conduct the investigations that we would demand of ourselves in similar circumstances. We must call upon them to think hard about their targeting strategies. We must call upon them to think about that awful phrase “collateral damage” not just in purely legal terms—the Geneva convention is actually not as clear on it as some say—but in moral terms. What is the end state? What is the effect in military terms that they are trying to achieve by the conduct of these military operations?