John Baron has got it wrong on Iran

Following the disgraceful attack on the British embassy in Iran, following Iran’s decision to expel the British ambassador (and which was followed by the speaker of the Iranian parliament telling us that we had it coming), you might have thought that people would have finally dropped any remaining illusions about the Iranian regime and its emnity to Britain.

Not so for Conservative MP John Baron, who argues that “the West has got it wrong on Iran.”

John Baron belittles the recent IAEA report as "almost an annual event on the international stage". He goes on to imply that the trashing of the British embassy was our fault, saying: "The US and UK seized upon the report as providing yet further evidence that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. Further financial sanctions led directly to the events on Tuesday."

He argues: "a close reading of the IAEA’s report reveals little new evidence that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. There is no smoking gun: only the suggestion that Iran is moving towards the option of a nuclear weapon." Iran is hardly likely to offer up a 'smoking gun' of clear incontrovertible evidence to the IAEA is it? Let us not forget that the report does say that Iran has carried out "work on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components," and says of Iranian research that "the application of such studies to anything other than a nuclear explosive is unclear to the agency.”

Baron goes on to impugn the integrity of the IAEA, making much of the fact that previous director Mohammed ElBaradei commented in 2009 that the threat from Iran was "hyped", but that he was succeeded by a Japanese diplomat who was closer to the US view, and: "After a decent interval, he is now bang on cue." So, without any evidence, we are supposed to assume that the previous IAEA director was right and honest while this one is merely saying what the US wants. This is presumably the same Mohamed ElBaradei who also wrote that "Iran has not agreed to any of the required transparency measures, which are essential for the clarification of certain aspects of the scope and nature of its nuclear programme," and that "Iran has not offered any cooperation with the Agency."

John Baron goes on to describe Iran's nuclear programme as "understandable", arguing that Iran feels 'encircled' - not mentioning Iran's arming of insurgents in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan and its sponsorship of terrorism across the Middle East and the wider world. He goes on to argue that Iran is no "more irrational than the existing members of the nuclear club". Is that supposed to be reassuring? Are the attack on the British embassy, the conferences about the Holocaust never happening and the claim that there are no homosexuals in the country rational actions? Arguing that Iran will be rational hardly means that it will benign.

Then Baron quibbles over whether Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" (the translation given by the Islamic Republic News Agency!), or whether he merely said "the régime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time". Even accepting this argument, Ahmadinejad has also said that Israel "will soon disappear" and "is on its way to annihilation", that as well as the idea of 'Greater Israel' "the idea of smaller Israel is dead", that it is God's wish that "this germ of corruption will be wiped off", that Israel is "like a cancer cell that spreads through the body" and "must be removed from the body", that Israel was "a kidney transplanted in a body that rejected it. Yes it will collapse and its end will be near.”

Baron goes on to extol the tolerance of the Islamic Republic for its Jewish minority, pointing out that "The 25,000 Jews in Iran are represented by a Jewish MP". Yet the reason there is a Jewish MP for Jews (and a Christian MP for Chistians and a Zoroastrian MP for Zoroastrians) is that non-Muslims are not allowed to vote or stand in elections for any of the other seats in parliament - so they have no say on the nature of the Government. Let us not forget that three quarters of the Jewish population of Iran fled following the Islamic Revolution and that Jews in Iran today are not equal but second-class citizens who face restrictions on their travel.

Baron says: "We tend to forget that, outside Israel, it has the most developed democracy in the region." Yet, as we all saw, elections are evidently less free and fair and civil liberties more restricted than in neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq.

John Baron makes the old argument that military action, "inflammatory sanctions" or appeals for 'regime change' would 'boost the hardliners' and 'undermine local proponents of reform'. According to this logic, we could never take any action against Iran, or indeed any other oppressive regime, as it would 'boost the hardliners' and hurt reformists. Presumably the best way to help democracy is to let repressive regimes get away with doing what they want.

It is already clear that the Iranian regime will not allow opponents or reformists any power. They were brutally crushed after the last presidential election and at the time of the Arab Spring. Us standing back and watching hardly did any good for the opposition then.

Baron's recommendation is that "we offer implicit recognition of Iran’s status as a major power in the region". In other words, we reward the Iranian regime for its bullying and aggressive behaviour, despite the proxy wars it has been waging against us.

Margaret Thatcher might call this the "stench of appeasement". But John Baron seems to have gone beyond appeasement into outright apologism for the Islamic Republic. It is difficult to see what Iran would have to do before he accepted any action against it.