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Global Security (Iran)

As I understand it, there is a process that makes it open to former terrorists to join democratic processes, just like the process that we have been through with the IRA and Sinn Fein. However, I do not believe that the PMOI is the driver for reforming Iran. It is not credible in that way. People have long memories in Iran, and I do not believe that the PMOI is the tool or the vehicle for reform. If the hon. Gentleman's argument is that we should allow and encourage Iran to move to a freer, more democratic state, I agree with him. However, when he listed people who abuse human rights and resist democracy, he left out all the Arab states surrounding Iran. When are the elections, and where are the democratic accountability and human rights, in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt? Those countries are not only our foreign policy allies; we are selling arms to them. Hypocrisy is a matter of fact in the middle east. I am happy to say, "Yes, I am a hypocrite," because I am a pragmatist, but let us not say, "Iran is absolutely evil because it doesn't respect human rights in the same way." It does not, and that is wrong—it needs to correct itself and be corrected by others—but neither do some of our allies, and we must face up to that and decide what our priorities are. We need to contextualise the religious struggle in Iran. It is not new. It must be understood that Shi'ism plays a major role in the development and direction of Iran as a theocracy, and always has. Within Shi'ism is a debate that goes back about 200 years, if not longer, focusing on the phrase "velayat-e faqih". I cannot pronounce it particularly well; I will give Hansard the quote. It means, effectively, the balance between secular and religious. It is either the limited or absolute guardianship of the Islamic jurist in Shi'ism, which basically says, "While you wait for the 12th imam to appear, who runs the country?" Some clerics believe that they run it in its entirety with the authority of the imam. Other clerics—not all the clerics are vicars, as my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South said—are reasoned, reforming people. Shi'ism is about reform. It is not like Wahabism, which is about going backwards; it is a long-held debate. Karroubi is an ayatollah. He is not agreed with, but he is a senior, learned cleric. One does not become a cleric in Iran by taking some correspondence course in Alabama and calling oneself right reverend. We should understand that ideological debate. For me, the saddest day of the recent incident was the Friday three weeks ago when, during prayers, the Supreme Leader got off his independence view and pronounced that his views were effectively closer to those of reigning President Ahmadinejad than to others'. The "others" were really Rafsanjani. He was sending a coded message that he wanted to use his role to guide and run the country according to a religious view. The people who disagree with that say, "No one can replicate the imams. Humans do what humans do, and clerics guide religion, but we're not going to interfere." The strong side of Shi'a politics is driven by that. One modern-day champion of it, ironically, was Ayatollah Khomeini, who wrote all about it in opposition. That is how he built a coalition for the revolution with Marxists, socialists and everybody else. Unfortunately, when he got to power—power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely—he went from limited to absolute. That is the challenge, and we must recognise it. The problem is the ticking time bomb of the nuclear clock. Without the nuclear worry, we could let things play their course. We could take steps to ensure that terrorism was not exported and so on. Unfortunately, the nuclear issue creates urgency. We are in a serious and difficult place. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) said that the regime was a rational and calculating one. I believed that right up until the elections. We have heard a lot of criticism, but the question is what to do. A lot of people in this debate have said, "The Foreign Office is appalling," or "Iran is appalling." So what? What are we going to do about it? That is the question. The worry today, which basically explains the silence of the UK and the US, is assessment. Is the regime still ruling by consent, and is it capable of delivering anything in a negotiation anyway? Is the country split down the middle? Is the religious establishment split, and even some of the revolutionary guards? My understanding is that the Ministries in the Whitehall of Tehran are split. The Ministry of the Interior is intimidating people; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs either has been left out in the cold or is not as engaged. If they are all over the place, that is the worry. Who are we going to sit around a table with, and if we do, can they deliver anyway? That is my fear about developing foreign policy for the next few months or years. It explains why both America and Britain have done their best to stay out of it: they need to assess it and work it out. I have some fears. I do not understand why both the Foreign Affairs Committee's report and the Foreign Office's response contain no indication that what happened at the election was going to happen. Fixing an election is a pretty tough job. I did not see any indication. I never got any briefings saying, "We think this election will be rigged." No one saw it coming. Are we not putting enough resource into our intelligence community, or is it looking elsewhere? We need forewarning of such issues. We must ask ourselves what works.