Why is the UK appeasing Iran?

Why on earth, for example, do we have normal diplomatic relations with Iran? Why do we have an ambassador cosying up to these godfathers of terror while banning, on trumped up charges of terrorism, those who would take Iran to democracy? Why are our economic sanctions so weak and tentative? Why don’t we impose an oil embargo on Iran? The answer, I’m afraid, is money.

Yesterday evening I joined members of the Iranian resistance and their parliamentary supporters at a House of Commons reception to celebrate the Iranian new year. These dissidents are anxiously awaiting the imminent decision by the Court of Appeal on whether the Home Secretary can appeal against the ruling by the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC) that the proscription of the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) — a ban it described as ‘perverse’ — must be lifted.

Meeting and listening to these warm, attractive, and above all courageous people — our natural allies within a Muslim world from which they have been exiled by the true terror which has taken over their country since the Iranian revolution of 1979 — I was struck even more strongly than ever before by the absurdity and indeed obscenity of the situation. Iran is racing to develop nuclear weapons as the knock-out blow in its war against Israel, America and the west. Its regime is arguably the single greatest danger to the world today. As one of the dissidents told me last evening, its fingerprints are all over every one of the world’s worst terrorist atrocities, including those popularly ascribed to Sunni-based groups. The PMOI is the main Iranian opposition. Yet Britain, along with the EU, has banned it as a terrorist organisation on the most cynical and spurious grounds in order that it can appease and suck up to the Iranian regime that so threatens us all. As the Daily Telegraph’s excellent legal editor Joshua Rozenberg wrote earlier this month:

The Home Office insists that the PMOI is a terrorist organisation - even though it never targeted civilians or operated outside Iran, it renounced violence in 2001 and fully disarmed in 2003. In the Commons on Tuesday, a Tory MP described it as ‘the only Iranian movement capable of producing democratic change in Iran’…PMOI lawyers are challenging a decision taken by the EU Council of Ministers last June to keep the group on a list of organisations ‘involved interrorist acts’. As a result, its funds are frozen and it is effectively prevented from campaigning in Europe for a secular democracy in place of Iranian theocracy

even though the EU's Court of First Instance has ordered the ban to be removed on the grounds that it had been imposed without a fair hearing.

This ban on the PMOI is worse than perverse. It illustrates in graphic terms how the British government, along with the Eurocrats, speak with forked tongue when they express such concern about Iran’s pursuit of the bomb. It is overwhelmingly obvious that what needs to happen in Iran is regime change. People are rightly concerned about the appalling likely consequences of a military strike against Iran. But according to the dissidents, much more could be done to topple the mullahs without a military strike. The regime, they say, is extremely weak, as was shown by the results of the recent (less than free) elections.

The overwhelming majority of Iranians want to see the back of the mullahs who have enslaved and impoverished them. A big push by the free world would topple the teetering regime. But instead Britain is propping it up. Why on earth, for example, do we have normal diplomatic relations with Iran? Why do we have an ambassador cosying up to these godfathers of terror while banning, on trumped up charges of terrorism, those who would take Iran to democracy? Why are our economic sanctions so weak and tentative? Why don’t we impose an oil embargo on Iran? My understanding is that this would not impact greatly on western economies but would have a catastrophic effect on Iran which the regime could not survive.

The answer, I’m afraid, is money. For all the weasel words in America, Britain and Europe about the Iranian threat, there are too many western economic vested interests in continuing to trade with Iran. As a result, Britain and Europe are actually colluding with the Iranian regime. If the Court of Appeal, using the same overwhelming evidence that caused POAC to use such strong language, rule in favour of the PMOI and the government then de-proscribes it and allows its voice for the first time to be heard, this will be not merely a great strike for freedom and justice but may also help start putting that pressure on the Iranian regime that is so sorely needed. It is not yet too late; but there is precious little time left. (The Spectator)