Iran

William Bain Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

Iran is a historic nation with a proud and brave population. Many hon. Members will, like me, have friends in Iran and know of the hospitality of its people. There is little doubt, however, that the Iranian regime is one of the most oppressive anywhere in the world. It is a sponsor of terrorist activities, is involved in systematic persecution of the opposition and minorities, and is attempting to isolate its people from the outside world.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2008 democracy index ranked Iran 145th out of 167 countries and listed it among 49 countries considered authoritarian. Amnesty International has reported regularly that trial hearings are often heard in private and that political detainees are being denied access to legal counsel during judicial proceedings despite official assurances to the contrary. A 2007 US Department of State report pointed out that although in theory defendants had the right to a public trial, a lawyer of their choice and the right of appeal, in practice these rights were not respected by the regime.

We know that women and young people were at the heart of the pro-reform green movement in 2009, with young people comprising 40% of the electorate, yet the regime has launched a vicious counter-offensive by resorting to the mass detention of young activists and expulsions from universities, and by widening the powers of its youth paramilitary forces. Many Iranian women have resisted the imposition of a religiously justified patriarchal structure that systematically discriminates against them.

From extensive interviews with men and women inside and outside Iran, Human Rights Watch has documented widespread patterns of arbitrary arrest and torture based on sexual orientation and gender identity. As the UN discovered in 2010, the regime’s failure to meet young people’s socio-economic expectations is a major cause of its internal unpopularity: about 70% of the unemployed in Iran are young people; youth unemployment has doubled in the past 20 years; and even graduates take on average about three years to find a job.

Abhorrent though the regime is, pre-emptive military action, whatever its origin, would be as wrong as it was in Iraq a decade ago. But we must not take the options off the table. The attitude of the young people of Iran will shape its future in the coming decades, which is why we should stand with them, attempt to engage with those parts of Iranian society that believe in co-operation with the rest of the middle east and the west, while being firm in our opposition to the regime’s internal repression, its state sponsorship of terrorism elsewhere in the middle east and its belligerence over the status of Israel.

Following the attacks on the Israeli embassies in Tbilisi and New Delhi last week, the Government of Iran and their agent, Hezbollah, are increasingly isolated in the middle east, as many of their traditional supporters have been alienated by a perceived pro-Shi’a favouritism in Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq. Syria acts as a prime channel to Hezbollah in Lebanon, as a base for Hamas leaders running Gaza, as a front-line ally in the confrontation with Israel and the United States, and as a political and commercial pathway into the Arab world.

The Iranians know, however, that in Syria the political balance between the minority Alawi Shi’a regime in Damascus and the Sunni majority has shifted to Iran’s distinct disadvantage, and that their main regional ally could soon fall. The Iranian regime knows that if the Arab spring topples the Assad regime in Syria, its greatest threat will be from revolution from within.

The true purpose of Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme is difficult to establish comprehensively, which leads to suspicions about its motives. The RAND Cooperation think-tank published a paper recently stating that Iran would be able to acquire the threshold capabilities to build a weapon within the decade, but its view was that Iran did not yet have the will to develop nuclear weapons. Analyses by those such as the Royal United Services Institute, Stratfor and even the IAEA concur that there is no conclusive evidence, as yet, that Iran has decided to build a nuclear weapon. Rather, they believe that Iran’s aim is to reach a stage where it can let the international community know that it has the ability and resources to have the option of acquiring the bomb rather than to actually do so. Nevertheless, last November’s IAEA report remains suspicious of the regime’s intent given its concealment of the third enrichment facility near Qom.

There is evidence that sanctions that focus on Iran’s central bank might secure a diplomatic solution to the crisis. The new restrictions, announced by the US Administration last week, target banks that handle proceeds from the sale of Iranian oil imports if the country that they belong to has not significantly reduced the volume of oil that it imports from Iran by the end of June. The sanctions complement the EU embargo on Iranian oil imports, to be introduced by 1 July. As Dennis Ross, President Obama’s special assistant on the middle east between 2009 and 2011, wrote in The New York Times last Tuesday, through Iran’s backing of the Assad regime in Syria there are signs of diminishing support for Iran in the middle east, and it may be seeking “a way out”. Iran cannot obtain credit or do business with any reputable international bank. It cannot insure its ships or find energy investors. Its currency has dramatically declined in value against the US dollar in recent months. All this has led the Iranian Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, to indicate that Tehran will seek to resume negotiations with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, as well as to discuss Russia’s proposals for resolving the dispute, which it point-blank refused to consider when they were first drawn up last year.

A diplomatic solution is best for the stability of the entire middle east. Although all options should remain open, constructive dialogue should be the aim of the policy of this Government and the United Nations. In the event of a military attack on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, the Iranian leadership could use its connections and regional influence to cause regional breakdown, and deploy its paramilitary allies elsewhere in the region, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and insurgent groups in Syria and Afghanistan, to create mayhem. As Colin Kahl, the former US deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for the middle east said last month,

“force…should remain…a last resort, not a first choice.”