---

Iran

My hon. Friend lets himself down with that sort of question. He has to answer the question of why in the middle east we have other allies that openly behead people in squares and do not respect human rights anything like as much as Iran does. We seem to do business with many of those countries at the same time. I said earlier in my speech that human rights are very important, but they are compatible with Iran’s rights and we need to help Iran to recognise that. They are compatible with Islam too. It is remarkable that we trade with some of those other countries. The longest-term threat, which one hears about in Iran if one goes to the country, is Wahhabi Sunni Islam, rather than the Iranian regime. I said to the Iranians recently, "When you used your influence beneficially in 2006 to create a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, you got closer to the top table than you’d ever been before. That is when you are powerful. When you use your influence the wrong way, such as with Hamas recently, you weaken yourself on the world stage and give no benefit whatever. It is a step backwards." If Iran recognises that influence can be benign for all of us, it will obtain much more currency with western powers. That is my main message to Iran. In this day and age, powerful countries are not those that create mayhem or fear, but those that use their influence to resolve conflicts. If they do that, they can take their place in the world order, as they hope to do. Members from all parts of the House are united on the policy of trying to develop better relations with Iran, but we must be clear about our end goals and whether the E3 plus 3 strategy works. I am always amazed that we have an overall strategy towards Iran. The E3 plus 3 is the European powers plus the United States, China and Russia, but the Chinese sell missile guidance systems to Iran, and the Russians are currently refitting two attack submarines. That is a problem, so Iranians see the E3 plus 3 as weak. Under George W. Bush’s presidency, the E3 plus 3 was certainly leaderless; it did not have much strength behind its rhetoric. There is now a great opportunity for the United States, with a strong President who has a proper mandate, to help to develop clear leadership on policy towards Iran and not to give in to the neo-con wing that often undermined policy in the middle east and has been shown to have failed miserably. There is a real opportunity for President Obama to create a strong "3" to add to the E3, to enable us to achieve a resolution. We will know sooner rather than later—when the United States finalises its formal position on Iran—whether there are going to be preconditions for talks. I hope that there will not be. I have first-hand experience of having to talk to terrorists without preconditions; it is not easy and it is certainly not nice. However, some preconditions never work; they only play into the hands of people who do not want a resolution. We must then examine the sanctions regime, because it strikes me that, historically, Iranians have been incredibly successful at trading. They were at the centre of trade routes for centuries, and they have already shown that, no matter what sanctions we try to impose on them, they are able to outwit them. They recently launched a satellite into space, they trade through Bahrain, which is opposite Iran and has a large Iranian ethnic population, and they are very canny traders. The problem is that sanctions help Iran’s religious conservatives, who demonstrate in their teachings and writings that isolationism is the way forward, because it keeps the revolution pure. With sanctions, we prevent the economic growth that would help to reform the way in which young people look at Iran today. We must make it clear to our Government that next time we come up with sanctions, either they must be uniformly applied or we should not go down that route at all. That is the problem: we start with a sanction and China and Russia do not back it. Recently, Switzerland signed a big contract with Iran to obtain gas. There is a problem delivering the gas, but the contract showed that, when push came to shove, Switzerland did not hang around to stop helping the Iranian regime. Indeed, the Italian Foreign Minister recently urged Italian companies to do more business with Iran—trusty Italy comes to the rescue on another subject. We must understand that Iran is desperate to prove that it has rights in the world and is able to demonstrate those rights. We must assure Iranians that we are not going after control of their country: our rhetoric does not match our actions, and we need to bring the two into line. Britain is known by the Iranians for having soft rhetoric but hard actions, whereas the Americans are known for having tough rhetoric but an inability to carry out their actions. There is challenge to be met in respect of whatever policy we come up with, which will no doubt be formed in response to the policy of the United States in the next few months. I urge Her Majesty’s Government to come up with a clear road map that is strong, reinforced and shows Iranians the way, but at the same time demonstrates to Iran that we know that we could have done things better in the past.