Sir Malcolm Rifkind: A nuclear Iran would trigger nuclearisation of the entire Middle East and it must be prevented

Sir Malcolm Rifkind is a former Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary. He now chairs the Intelligence and Security Committee.

The recent report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) makes clear what observers of Iran’s nuclear program have suspected for many years. Iran is not simply seeking nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, but simultaneously readying the components that would be needed to construct a nuclear weapons capacity.

In all the fevered talk of IAEA reports, it is easy to lose sight of why Iran’s actions are so destabilising. Many argue, often with a great sense of certainty, that we have nothing to fear from Iran’s efforts. After all, Israel already acquired such arms. Surely it is hypocritical to hinder Iran’s attempt to do the same? Such challenges are legitimate, but they are not persuasive. The Western world’s deep concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions are well warranted, and cannot be explained away by establishing false equivalence with Israel.

Central to this debate are the Arab states, and the countries of the Persian Gulf. While they may rail against Israel’s nuclear capacity, in part for domestic political reasons, most are quite relaxed about the status quo. States like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt know perfectly well that Israel’s nuclear capacity was created in order to deter a concerted offensive against it. It has always been a defensive capability, and never once employed as part of Israel’s diplomatic efforts, either overtly or implicitly. Indeed, so comfortable are the countries of the Arab world that they have never once sought to check Israel’s capacity through the creation of their own arms. Instead, there has been near broad consensus on the attractiveness of a nuclear free region, something that the Arab states will call for at a regional conference next year.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP: The EU must threaten Iran with financial isolation

Sir Malcolm Rifkind was Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for Defence in the last Conservative Government.

Ever since the capture of 15 sailors and marines on the Shatt al-Arab waterway, there has been an unnerving sense of déjà vu. As history since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 shows all too clearly, the Iranians are no strangers to tactics of this kind.

Now, as then, the regime is nervous because of outside pressure: a second unanimous Security Council resolution, targeted at Iran’s nuclear programme, has recently tightened sanctions and stepped up the freeze on regime assets.

To Tehran, the question of whether the British service personnel were in Iranian or Iraqi waters is essentially unimportant. What matters is the opportunity for additional leverage. The brazen seizure of the marines and sailors is one way of doing this. They have already demonstrated their ability  to create instability in Iraq through their close links to Shia militias and through disrupting traffic in the Persian Gulf.

A further possible motive lies with the recent US capture of five Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the north of Iraq. In the eyes of Tehran, the British service personnel may serve as a useful bargaining tool in any final deal. But the US has rejected a swap, and so it should. A deal such as this  would create an appalling precedent, encouraging the use of kidnapping as a foreign policy weapon across the Middle East.

Given the nature of Iran’s motivations, and the evident difficulty in securing an immediate release of the prisoners, what else can be done? Margaret Beckett and the Foreign Office have correctly taken the issue to the United Nations and have secured valuable diplomatic support from nations such as Turkey and Iraq. They have also signalled Britain’s strong determination by publicly demanding the release of the personnel, and by  providing proof that they were taken from Iraqi waters.