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Iran (External Involvement)

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, and I agree with him entirely. That is precisely the point that I am trying to make. I need some guidelines from the Government on where we are going with Mujaheddin-e-Khalq and PMOI. I believe that we have the possibility of pulling a peaceful solution from the current morass, but let us not forget that whatever threats we see daily over the hill, our soldiers, sailors and airmen and being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by Iranian weapons and Iranian evil. What are the solutions? This will sound deeply counter-intuitive, but one reason why our troops are so exposed, particularly in Iraq, is because there are so few of them. The game is up, and there is no doubt that we intend to withdraw substantially in the near future. I guess that the Americans are thinking along similar lines, but they have taken a pragmatic military decision, which may or may not work: that if they are to withdraw in good order, they must do so from a position of strength. The situation is dangerous, and our enemies intend to make the summer even more dangerous, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we continue to run down the number of troops, fewer of them will have to cover larger areas in increasingly contained forms of transport: helicopters, armoured vehicles and so on. That means that they will be more vulnerable. I shall not go through the technical arguments again, but if even our heaviest armoured fighting vehicles are vulnerable to weapons, that can only mean that fewer troops will result in proportionately higher casualties. I know that that is counter-intuitive, but would the Minister please assure me that in the dying days—a distasteful comment—of the Iraq campaign we will have enough troops left there to protect those who are trying to withdraw? I shall be extremely interested to hear his argument. Can the Minister also make it clear how we intend to continue with the sanctions regime? Nineteen months after Iran was referred to the Security Council and 10 months after the Security Council decided that Iran’s nuclear programme"““is a threat to international peace and security””," United Nations sanctions have not imposed much of a penalty on Iran. Similarly, the Security Council’s resolutions are very limited. There are few concrete restrictions. They call for vigilance and restraint, but make no demands on Iran for which it can be held to account. The United States’ actions must be followed by the European Union and properly supported. In a moment, I shall go through one or two of the actions that we could impose. Above and beyond everything else, we must act as a sovereign nation to encourage dialogue between the United States and Iran. However, without Iranian compliance, we should be looking to impose much stronger United Nations penalties on Iran if she will not co-operate. When the UN meets to consider its next resolution on Iran in the last week of May and early June, the Security Council should either impose or raise the prospect of a number of different measures, such as a travel ban on individuals involved in Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programme; a formal ban on the training of Iranians in nuclear disciplines; the designation of Bank Saderat Iran, which is said to be used by Iran to transfer money to terrorist groups; and adding leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, which controls Iran’s ballistic missile programme and is though to orchestrate violence in Iraq, to the travel ban and assets freeze list. I could go on, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) will add to that list. I have spoken for long enough, Mr. O’Hara, but while we are mesmerised by such eye-catching events as we have seen over the past two or three weeks and while we agonise over the potential development of nuclear weapons in Iran, our servicemen are being eviscerated by weaponry that comes from Iran to both Iraq and Afghanistan. We cannot allow that to continue. It is an undeclared act of war. Unless we seize this opportunity to harden Government policy, to propose concerted, orchestrated and coherent actions across the alliance, I suggest that the next few months will be bloody, hot and lethal for our troops who are trying to serve this country with all their courage.