Roger Gale MP: Appeasement only emboldens Iran

Roger Gale is Conservative MP for North Thanet.

US President George W Bush has condemned critics of the US administration who advocate direct talks with Tehran, stating that such a policy was equivalent to the ‘appeasement’ of Adolf Hitler before the Second World War.

'As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history,' Bush said in his address to Israel’s Parliament.

Bush’s statements could easily describe the policy adopted by the European Union throughout recent years.

The EU has for many years adopted a policy of appeasement towards Iran, most significantly through 'incentives packages' as well as through continuous 'negotiations' over Iran’s nuclear program. This approach has taken many forms, but ultimately the policy has failed in its objectives.

The international community offered its latest 'incentives package' to Tehran only a matter of weeks ago. As on previous occasions there has been a deafening silence from Tehran in relation to what was offered, with the rhetoric from Iran’s officials clear and unambiguous, ‘our nuclear rights are not negotiable’. Clearly, the end of the long appeasement road looks to be in sight and as was necessary in the 1940s, so a change of policy is now essential.

Earlier this month, the Court of Appeal in the UK ordered the de-listing of Iran’s opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) from a list of proscribed terrorist organisations. The PMOI was banned in the UK in 2001 by then Home Secretary Jack Straw, who later admitted in a 2006 interview with Radio 4 that he had done so, ‘at the behest of Tehran’.

It was this action by the British government that laid the foundations for the policy of appeasement. The group was later listed by the EU in 2002 under UK pressure. However, the intrinsic link between the PMOI’s terror listing and the policy of appeasement adopted by the EU came in 2004. A report by Agence France Press on an incentives package offered to Iran at that time stated that the EU would continue to view the PMOI as terrorists if Tehran abided by its nuclear obligations.

Now the Court of Appeal has given a damning indictment of the British government’s actions in its 7 May judgment. The panel of three judges chaired by the Lord Chief Justice of England of Wales, stated that “neither in the open material nor in the closed material was there any reliable evidence that supported a conclusion that the PMOI retained an intention to resort to terrorist activities in the future,” and “there is no evidence of any attempt to ‘prepare’ for terrorism.”

With the government now agreeing to implement the Court’s ruling within weeks, the major plank in the appeasement platform will be removed. On the back of the court’s judgment the UK must act to lift British proscription as soon as possible and it must make it clear to the EU that no legal justification exists for the proscription of the PMOI in the EU-wide list either.

Appeasement has had its day and failed. With the PMOI’s historic victory in the courts, an opportunity is now open for a change of strategy towards the threat posed by the Iranian regime. The UK and EU must now recognise the Iranian opposition as a group worthy of assisting the international community to find a positive  and emancipated way forward. Support for the democratic aspirations of the brave Iranian population offers the most viable path to an end to this crisis by peaceful means. Such a policy needs to be be implemented now, before it is too late.

Related video link: Israel's Knesset applauds Bush's criticisms of those who would talk to terrorists and Iran