Iran

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), who, as ever, made some perspicacious and penetrating points.

I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). I regret that he had to defend himself against the charge of appeasement from the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds). I resent that charge on my hon. Friend’s behalf. This is a motion not of appeasement, but of courage. I may not agree with it and other Members may not agree with it, but this is a courageous and necessary debate. Perhaps it flies a kite—I do not say that with any disrespect to my hon. Friend. By golly, it is a kite that needs to be flown. This situation has been referred to as white-hot dangerous by distinguished analysts in the United States and other parts of the world.

[Mr Dodds]

I think that I made it very clear that I admire the courage of the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). I made it clear that I laid the charge not against those who proposed the motion, but against the argument. I hope that the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) will accept that and see what I was saying in a different light.

[Patrick Mercer]

Of course I do. I was trying to make a point. The right hon. Member for Belfast North has made his point. In defence of my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay, I know his record and his background. I watched the 3rd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers in action in the native city of the right hon. Member for Belfast North and they never appeased anyone. It is a fine battalion and he is a fine officer.

Some fascinating statements have been made tonight. I cannot support my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay, despite my admiration. I find the amendment interesting. I found the comment from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) that American action might be acceptable or amenable—forgive me, I am paraphrasing and have not quite got the right phrase—in the short to medium term wholly remarkable in the light of what has happened in Iraq and what is happening in Afghanistan on the Pakistani border. I really do not accept that.

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

Perhaps I can explain to my hon. Friend what I was saying. I think that it will be clear from the record, if he reads it tomorrow. I was saying that there would of course be serious consequences from a military intervention by the United States, which could last weeks, months or even one or two years—who knows? However, if the alternative is Iran having a nuclear weapon on a permanent basis, which would mean a massively enhanced threat from a nuclear weapon state, one cannot simply dismiss the military option because there would be a significant downside for one or two years.

[Patrick Mercer]

I am most grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend. However, the words still sit uneasily with me. I do not believe that we are in the business of tinkering with world peace.

I found Defence questions earlier today very depressing. The right hon. Member for Belfast North said in this debate that this situation is the biggest threat to world peace. We are already involved in a regional war in this area. As my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) made so very clear, the country that we are talking about borders Afghanistan, and the regional war stretches through Afghanistan, into Pakistan and touches nuclear-tipped Russia at one end and the potentially nuclear-tipped Iran at the other. We cannot afford any ill-judged military action.

I do not want to sound like a stuck record and to go through all the points that have been made about Iran’s hideous rhetoric; the fact that she may be working on a weapons programme: the fact that, as we speak, she has troops involved in an exercise in southern Iran, called in support of the military leadership; the fact that she is threatening to close the strait of Hormuz; and so on. However, I will say this. When I visited Tehran, some interesting things came to mind. For instance, until I was taken down the boulevard of Bobby Sands—there is a boulevard of that name in the centre of Tehran—I had not realised that Great Britain, and Iran’s relationship with Great Britain, had such high relevance in Iranian and Persian thinking. I had not realised that Great Britain punched above its weight in Iranian thinking. I had not realised that Iran saw Britain as perfidious Albion—I am generalising hugely, of course.

Much of the west’s foreign policy is seen, obviously wrongly, as being dictated by ourselves as a tiny but important nation. I had not realised that a Tehranian might say, “Heavens above, it’s raining again. It’s typical British weather.” All the ills of the world seem to be laid at this country’s door. That puts us in an extremely important position in negotiating with Iran. Many of the Foreign Secretary’s comments therefore give me heart.

When I was in Iran, the Iranians said to us, “Are you honestly suggesting that we support al-Qaeda? Please demonstrate.” Of course, we said, “Well, we have the evidence.” “Do you?” “No, we only have circumstantial evidence.” Of course, we are used to hearing misinformation and black propaganda—we need look no further than our intervention in Iraq under the last Government, in the second Gulf war. In Iran, we said, for instance, “We have heard that the central shura of al-Qaeda is resident here in Tehran”. The reply was, “Please point it out, because it is not. There is no evidence to suggest that that is the case.”

Similarly, we asked British troops in Afghanistan whether they could demonstrate whether any of the weapons being used against them had come from Iran. The answer was yes, but there were also weapons that had come from France, the USA, Germany and Britain herself. There was nothing to indicate a relationship between al-Qaeda and Iran, despite everything that we were hearing from the western press.

Here is the rub: the single most important thing I heard in Iran was that the current generation of leaders there fully understand what it is like to be involved in a war of national survival. Many of the individuals who are now of political maturity were young men of military age during the Iran-Iraq war. One Member—forgive me, I cannot remember which—said earlier that nuclear weapons had only ever been used once. That is true, but let us not forget that in the Iran-Iraq war, when hundreds of thousands of men were killed in action and millions of people died, weapons of mass destruction were used willingly.

[Bob Stewart]

I am sure my hon. Friend would agree that that war was started by Iraq and, to the best of my knowledge, Iran has not started a war.

[Patrick Mercer]

I thank my hon. and gallant Friend and entirely agree. My point is that many of the current generation of decision makers, if that is the right phrase in Iran—we cannot look at them as one cohesive political body—have experienced war at first hand. They understand what weapons of mass destruction are like, and my opinion is that if they are allowed to get hold of such weaponry, they will probably use it.

That puts us in an exceedingly difficult position on the one hand and an exceedingly powerful position on the other hand. I say to the Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary that if we want our military position to be credible, let us make it so. Let us not have instances, such as we had in the past, of the Royal Navy being embarrassed in the Gulf. Let us ensure that our operations are above reproach. We cannot be anything less than credible.

In the current white-hot and dangerous situation, we have the opportunity to negotiate. When it comes down to it, no side really wants to fight. Let us therefore take the opportunity for Great Britain to prove that she is not perfidious, and to speak to her friends in Israel and America and lead the way. We can use our influence, to use an awful aphorism, to punch above our weight. Although we have the military option, let us pray that we never, ever have to use it.