Iran

Debate between John Baron and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

As my hon. Friend, who is often spot on, will know, Iraq is virtually a proxy state of Iran. That is a hugely important step for the world, because both countries combined have 19% of the world’s proven oil reserves, so instability in the region will lead to a real problem. That compares with a figure of about 7% in Kuwait and about 2% in the United Arab Emirates. To put it into context, the figure for the proven oil reserve in the hands of Iran and Iraq is very significant indeed.

The Iranian regime not only promotes instability and terror in its own country—the example was given of five executions only last night—but is one of the greatest exporters of terror around the world. I have always been a supporter of Israel, but I would shudder to live in Israel today, with Hezbollah from the Syrian state and Hamas from the Palestinian state. The Israelis are in a very difficult position. If war were to break out in Iran, I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex that the proxies in the region, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, would become even more active than they are at present.

I agreed with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary when he said at the weekend that Iran acquiring nuclear weapons could trigger an arms race in the middle east. One or two Members have disputed that, but we should look at history and the example of Pakistan and India. The moment one got nuclear capability, the other had to have it. If Iran acquires a nuclear capability, Saudi Arabia will probably do so, the Syrian regime, if it survives, will certainly want to, and perhaps other states in the middle east will, too.

[Mr Baron]

Given that Israel’s acquiring nuclear weapons has not led to its Arab neighbours acquiring them, why does my hon. Friend believe that Iran’s Muslim neighbours would have a greater urgency to do so?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I knew somebody was going to make that point to me, so I anticipated it. Of course Israel has a nuclear capability, although it has never acknowledged it, but the difference between Israel and Iran is that Israel is a stable democracy and Iran is an unpredictable country—under its current regime. That is not to say that under a future regime it will not change, but under its current regime I should not predict the circumstances in which it might or might not use such nuclear capability.

The whole essence of the cold war—Russia, America, Britain, France—was that none of us dared use nuclear weapons even if we had the inclination, which I am sure we never did, because we knew the destruction that they would cause, having seen it in Japan during the second world war. It is a huge thing to press the nuclear button, so, despite my hon. Friend disagreeing with me, I think that we have to be very careful about reaching such a situation with Iran.

The other point that I wish to make, in the rapidly shrinking time that I have this evening, is that I wholly support the efforts of my right hon. Friends in the coalition to bring about a diplomatic solution. That solution has to be backed up with sanctions, and I wholly believe that we must have the military option available to us when we go into the diplomatic negotiating chamber. I profoundly disagree with my hon. Friend and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, because if we rule out that option before we have even completed diplomatic negotiations we will be in a considerably weaker position.

Of those three legs to the stool, we need to concentrate on sanctions, and the greatest role that the British Foreign Office—our Government, our Ministers—can play is to get some of our allies on side: to get Russia, China, Turkey and India all on side to make those sanctions effective. If the reports in the newspapers today are to be believed, and Turkey, China and India are participating in barter deals to get around our banking sanctions, that very considerably weakens them. I hope that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench take that point well and truly on board.

This country has always been very good at soft power. Our diplomatic service has always been the best and our British Council has always been the best, but in this situation one of the greatest contributions we can make to resolving the problem without the necessity of going to war—I cannot stress enough that I do not advocate war, which is the last thing we want to see—is, as the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) said, to look very carefully at the BBC World Service. The BBC’s Farsi service can contribute a huge amount to the situation, and we should go the extra mile to ensure that it is not jammed, that we do not cut the service and that we broadcast the optimum number of hours on shortwave, over the internet and on television, for those middle class people in—