Iran regime attending Syrian conference: Not moral or pragmatic

On Thursday, Chatham House will be hosting an event in London entitled “Overcoming Regional Challenges in the Middle East” but, perversely, the Iranian regime’s Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, is scheduled to address that conference.

Lord Maginnis of Drumglass, writes, “Worse still, it is further planned that he will address the UK Parliament earlier that day.”

Lord Maginnis is an independent member of the UK House of Lords and prominent member of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom (BPCIF), www.iran-freedom.org.

He is of the opinion that conspicuously, this event comes just one week after Hassan Rouhani visited Rome and Paris for high-level trade talks, and subsequent to the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

He is appalled that London is encouraging the trend of appeasement toward the Iranian regime. “Considering what we know about the impact that Tehran has already had on the Syrian crisis, surely the last thing we need is to encourage further input or even to listen to what the Iranian regime has to say about a crisis where it has been an active contributor.”

He points out a reversal in the attitude towards that regime saying “It was not very long ago that the United Kingdom, the United States, and their allies seemed to generally understand what had to be done. It was not long ago that we were rightly pushing for the ousting of Syria’s dictatorial President Bashar al-Assad.” The leadership in London and Washington has began to court Iran’s input. Over the past couple of months, they appear to have abdicated their moral position.

He lamented the inclusion of Iranian delegates in a Geneva security conference led to the determination that the Assad regime could be allowed to remain in power.

This is not pragmatic at all that Iranian influence in Syria be tolerated. Iran’s all-out support for Assad has only served to make the Syrian Civil War, longer, bloodier, and a greater source of the instability that is plaguing the region and now enveloping Europe, through the ensuing refugee crisis. “Assad’s crimes and the support of Iran-backed Shiite militias has only intensified the sectarian conflict. Furthermore, it is in large part because of this that Daesh has been so successful in spreading its propaganda among Sunnis who are living in Tehran’s shadow.”

The Western powers will only be contributing to the worsening resentments of Sunnis who are marginalised within Iran’s sphere of influence and being radicalised by Daesh. The visit of Rouhani to Italy and France, and of Zarif to the UK indicates that the European governments still need to be reminded of these realities.

Much of Europe is being blinded by greed for Iranian oil and a desire for economic ties in the Middle East irrespective of any moral or humanitarian cost.

His stop in Paris was met by thousands of demonstrators, supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the principal Iranian opposition and by key members of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) led by Maryam Rajavi, who sought to call attention to the Iranian President’s ongoing and active contribution to repression, escalating executions, and political imprisonment in his country over the past three years.

Their protest reiterated a recommendation that human rights defenders have made many times in the past several months: to revive relations with the Islamic Republic had to be dependent on more than just a tiny set of changes written into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

He concluded that by embracing Rouhani or Zarif or any other representative of the clerical government ruling Iran, Western officials appear to be labouring under the misapprehension that that agreement alone represents a trend toward moderation that should have a beneficial impact upon the lives of the Iranian people and the future of the Middle East in general. “But nothing could be further from the truth.”

The ongoing human rights abuses, regional intrusions, and anti-Western rhetoric that pours out of Tehran make it clear that “Iran has no more place in global affairs today than it did during the last 37 years, when the Islamic fundamentalists seized control of the capital and installed a government that has sought to export political upheaval.”