Dear Jeremy,
Thank you very much for your typically robust performance on BBC TV’s Question Time last night. However I wish to counsel you against using the prospect of war with Iran as a vehicle to demonstrate your resolve, and the Party’s new-found ‘establishment’ credentials. Your political future, and maybe even your personal freedom, are at stake here….
In the debate you not only expressed your support for blockade-type unilateral sanctions, that do not have UN support, but also you gave the distinct impression that you were in favour of the UK joining a major war against Iran.
The recent rise in tensions arises from the latest IAEA report (Nov 8 2011) which has been successfully spun by parts of the US government as providing new evidence of Iran’s intentions to weaponsise its civilian nuclear capability. This is a disingenuous untruth. The report says nothing of the sort and I invite you to read it. All of it.
This report states clearly that Iran abandoned its fledgling nuclear weaponsisation programme in 2003, and that there is no evidence of the diversion of enriched nuclear material. In this it agrees with the US ‘NIE’ of 2007, and other formal US government analyses. It states that Iran may have continued some aspects of this pre-2003 programme, and calls for further inspections.
You should avail yourself of the context: first, that there have been credible expert criticisms in the US, of new accusations of Iranian weaponsisation activity passed to the IAEA by the US, and second, that the Iran issue is being used in a cat-and-mouse game between political factions in the US and between the US and Israel, over Obama’s re-election. Indeed the threat of unilateral Israeli action was a key factor in the UK persuading the rest of the EU to agree to new sanctions on Iran – which could easily lead to war by themselves.
Even US Defense Secretary Panetta is against the war, and clearly the White House is trying to avoid it. Last Monday when Panetta was asked on TV if Iran was actually developing a nuclear weapon he said ‘no‘, referring to ‘potential capability’ intentions in an obvious attempt to guard his political flank.
So where does your FCO ‘briefing’ material come from, and whom in the US is instructing whom in the UK, as part of the game to outflank Panetta (and Obama) ?
The massive UK and US military build up required is now underway. It would be a devastating war with hundreds of thousands of deaths, involving Gulf States, and maybe even Russia and China. UK ministers who supported another illegal war would be at best vilified and at worse convicted in the international courts. Are you really sure you wish to stick to the apparent comfort of your FCO briefings ?
* Paul Reynolds is an independent foreign policy & international economics adviser, who has had senior political roles in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, among other countries across the globe.
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11 Comments
Thank you for this post. You paint an alarming picture of political manipulation and a credulous Minister. It may be that the extreme subtleties and sensitivities of international diplomacy have escaped Mr Browne here.
I have to admit that I’d stopped watching Question Time before it got to this question. I’d already reached a state of deep despondency as Mr Browne lined up fully and enthusiastically behind the Tory agenda, particularly in proffering some complete and utter guff as justification for the benefit cap. If he was going to have to defend the policy out of some sense of Coalition collective responsibility then, as a Libdem, I’d have quite liked him to show a bit more sensitivity to the fact that it is going to cause families considerable hardship, rather than being quite so gung-ho for the swatting down of households on benefit. Close your eyes and you would assume that he was the Tory on the panel, and not one from the moderate end of the Tory spectrum. Tally ho!
“We don’t want a war with Iran.” Jeremy Browne, 46:39 mins (ish) into QT. He stated it repeatedly.
Next!
Next, in the popular Victorian refrain, is “But by Jingo if we do, We’ve got the boats, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too!”
Indeed. Instead of rushing around Europe and Cathy Ashton’s offices trying to promote a dangerous blockade of Iran’s oil and Central Bank, UK FCO ministers should be siding more decisively with the Obama White House and Secretary of Defense Panetta, in trying to stop the march to war (in our own, and Europe’s interests). Declaring that the UK ‘will not take any options off the table’ (military-diplomatic code for ‘we are happy to go to war, and use our nuclear weapons if necessary’) puts us at the centre of the campaign to go to war with Iran. Iran has been allegedly ’2 years away’ from having a deliverable nuclear weapon since 1984. And instead of our only FCO minister doing the feeble ‘We don’t want war….but…’ routine, we need the party to take a different line from the Tories, in both substance and rhetoric.
Thanks Paul for keeping this issue firmly on the agenda and also for your role in ensuring that Lib Dem European Policy is against taking any part in this war. Leslie – yes, it was the fact he stated it repeatedly that should set alarm bells ringing…….it was only the “but” that you missed
. Those of us in the party who remain proud of our party’s stance on Iraq should take every opportunity to remind our dear colleagues in government of the values on which they stand and were elected – anything less is a deriliction of duty.
The problem is that he probably does not want the UK to attack Iran in the same way George W Bush did not want to go to war Iraq.
Cheer up. At least now we know the UK isn’t going to be the 51st state. That will be the Moon …
Thanks for the heads-up, Paul. This is a red-line issue for me: if Conference, or any of our ministers in Government, or any substantial number of our MPs end up supporting a war with Iran, then this is no longer the party for me. I really hope it doesn’t come to that, though.
@Geoff Payne You’re surely not comparing Jeremy Browne to George W Bush? Jeremy Browne is a thoughtful and principled Liberal Democrat telling the truth as he sees it – hardly comparable to President Bush!
@Paul Reynolds The Obama Administration strongly favours the UK/EU sanctions that this British government is imposing on Iran. You ask for the UK to get more in step with Obama on this – by pursuing sanctions, we couldn’t be MORE in step with US, which is also imposing similar sanctions.
Here is the BBC’s Question Time page, so that you can watch Thursday’s episode and decide for yourself re:- Mr Browne’s comments: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/default.stm
We shouldn’t lose sight of the point that a lot of this posturing is a matter of bluff, of getting people to back down before a shot is fired. So there is an advantage in convincing the other side that we might do some things that we wouldn’t really do.
The minister did leave me with the clear impression that, in no circumstances, would he countenance any re-run of the second Iraq war. I don’t see an Obama White House promoting that, although I’m not so sure about a Dr. Gingrich White House -which hopefully won’t happen.
@Matthew Yes you have a point, my comment was not well made. What I meant was that politicians – whoever they are – often say they do not want to go to war but that does not stop them from doing so. The problem Lib Dem ministers have on this is that they have to say in public the agreed policy of the government, whether they agree with it or not. So I have no idea what Jeremy Browne really thinks on this. I was not aware he said much on foreign policy before he became a minister.
I think this issue is a very difficult one. It is tempting to believe that Iran has no intention of developing nuclear weapons – that would make policy making a lot easier. But the Irani government itself would become very popular if it did, just like Pakistan. So we need good intelligence to find out, but of course much of that would be classified, how can you them have a proper public debate about what to do about it. Even if they have developed nuclear weapons, attacking Iran would seem an extrordinarily dangerous thing to do. Whatever policy we decide, it cannot be one of attacking Iran.