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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 496-iii

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

 

 

Global Security: Iran

 

 

Wednesday 4 July 2007

LORD ARCHER OF SANDWELL

Evidence heard in Public Questions 139 - 198

 

 

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Foreign Affairs Committee

on Wednesday 4 July 2007

Members present:

Mike Gapes (Chairman)

Mr. Fabian Hamilton

Mr. John Horam

Mr. Eric Illsley

Andrew Mackinlay

Mr. Malcolm Moss

Mr. Ken Purchase

Rt hon. Sir John Stanley

Ms Gisela Stuart

________________

Examination of Witness

 

Witness: Lord Archer of Sandwell QC gave evidence.

Q139 Chairman: Good afternoon, everybody. Could I ask all members of the public to switch off their mobile phones, or take the batteries out?

Lord Archer, Peter, welcome. As you know, we are conducting the inquiry into Iran. You sent us a submission, and as a result we decided to ask you to come along to give oral evidence. Can I begin by asking you for your assessment of the current situation with regard to the Government's listing of the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran as a terrorist organisation, and how you see the current position with regard to that, both in the UK and in the European Union?

Lord Archer: I would be happy to answer that question. In fact I would be delighted. I am slightly troubled, but I am entirely in your hands. The matter is sub judice at the moment. It is the subject of an appeal. But if you think it right for me to continue, I should be happy to do so.

Q140 Chairman: As far as you are aware, has the European Commission explained why the PMOI continues to be listed as a terrorist organisation?

Lord Archer: I see. There are two separate proscriptions. There is the one in Europe and there is the one under the Terrorism Act in this country. In relation to the European one, the most up-to-date position that I have come across is that the Commission has put in a statement of the reasons for the proscription, somewhat belatedly because it had been criticised by the Court for not having informed the Court of those reasons. If I remember correctly, the last incident that it mentioned was prior to 2001. As far as I could see, there was no suggestion that there had been any kind of activity that could be classified as terrorism after that date. I do not think that there has been anything further than that.

I believe that the Council of Ministers has passed a resolution, but I do not think that there have been any further proceedings. The position was that the court declared the 2005 proscription to be unlawful. The Council of Ministers then relied on the 2006 proscription, but there was simply no difference between them. There is not the slightest reason to think that if the 2006 proscription had been before the Court, there would have been any difference in its deliberations. So that is the position at the moment, I think.

Q141 Chairman: That refers to the decision of the Council of Ministers when it met just a few days ago, is that correct? You are talking about the meeting on 28 June?

Lord Archer: I am not sure what emerged from that meeting that changes things. I believe that the Council basically confirmed where it stood.

Q142 Chairman: Are you saying that, as far as you are aware, there is no new information and this decision is simply based upon the previous position?

Lord Archer: I have not seen any new information, certainly not about the merits of the case.

Q143 Chairman: We now have a new ministerial team in the Foreign Office. It is substantially a new team-one Foreign Office Minister is still in the same position as before. Essentially, there is a completely new Foreign Office team. Is it your expectation or hope that there will be any change in the British Government's position with regard to this issue?

Lord Archer: I am always reluctant to guess on these matters, because normally I guess wrongly, but, of course, the proscription is a matter for the Home Office. What is so surprising in this case is that a Home Office decision was supported by evidence that was confined to evidence from a Foreign Office Minister. You may think that that supports precisely what some other people were saying, namely that this decision was not reached on the merits of whether the organisation's members were terrorists or not, but in fact it related to whether it was a diplomatic advantage to proscribe them.

Q144 Chairman: The then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who introduced the proscription when he was Home Secretary, said in 2003 that the "MEK is a terrorist organisation and one which I banned as Home Secretary two and a half years ago". So clearly it was not just a Home Office decision, and the same Minister was clearly involved.

Lord Archer: Indeed, it was the same Minister, yes.

Q145 Andrew Mackinlay: We have just heard that Jack Straw told this Committee that he banned this organisation two and a half years before 2003. From your understanding, there has never been any suggestion either by the European Union or the United Kingdom Government that there has ever been any terrorist or military activity by the organisation since 2001. Is that correct?

Lord Archer: Yes, I have not heard any suggestion of such activity.

Q146 Andrew Mackinlay: And so far as you are aware, was there not-please help me on this matter-some public declaration, or manifestation, of the repudiation of arms by the PMOI?

Lord Archer: Yes. In 2001, the PMOI formally renounced violence of any kind. Prior to that time, it was true that it had had exchanges of fire with Government troops, because it was attacking police stations where it thought that people were being tortured; I believe that that was the case. Such attacks were not on any large scale, but were carried out on one or two occasions. I think that two Ministers were killed, both of whom were notorious torturers. That was what the PMOI practised before 2001. It was never at any time targeting civilians.

Q147 Chairman: Is it not the case that, at one point, the PMOI was responsible for blowing up members of the Iranian Parliament and also that it was associated with Saddam Hussein's activities against the Kurds in Iraq?

Lord Archer: The answer to both those questions is no. As I said before, I believe that many years ago, in the early days of the "revolution", the PMOI assassinated two particular people, both of whom were officials and notorious torturers. I am not aware of the PMOI ever blowing up anyone, including members of the Iranian Parliament. So far as being associated with Saddam Hussein, no, the PMOI was not; it had a presence in Iraq, because it could not stay in Iran. So it was over the border in Iraq, but it was not in any way concerned with the regime in Iraq. The PMOI members were tolerated, possibly because the Iraqi regime thought that it would be getting at Iran in that way.

Q148 Chairman: May I interrupt you on that point? Is it not a fact that they were in Paris, and that they were expelled from France and went to Baghdad?

Lord Archer: That is not quite the case either. It is true that they had a presence in Paris, and the French Government proscribed them in the same way as the British Government. Subsequently, of course, the French courts held that that was unlawful, and the proscription was cancelled. However, some of them did go, not to Baghdad but to Camp Ashraf.

They all had a presence there. There was no secret about it; it was well known. They said at the outset of hostilities that they would not participate in the hostilities in any way, and there is not the slightest reason to believe that they ever did. They did not even retaliate when they were attacked by coalition forces. Subsequently, the American authorities investigated them at great length; they said that they were quite satisfied that there was no element of terrorism and that they should be on a list of protected persons.

Q149 Chairman: Why were the Iraqi Kurds in particular so hostile to them, feeling that they were on Saddam's side?

Lord Archer: I never discovered that.

Q150 Chairman: It is true, is it not?

Lord Archer: I have heard it said. How far it is true, I do not know. I am not in a position to say. But I have heard it said that at least some Kurds believed that they were on the side of Saddam. Whether that is because they were confused with the Iranian revolutionary guards, who were on the side of the Government and not on the side of the National Council of Resistance, I do not know. I do not know what the reasoning behind that view was.

Q151 Andrew Mackinlay: It is probably a matter for debate afterwards, but to use a Northern Ireland phrase, there was a repudiation, was there not, in 2001? You are not aware of any evidence of that being abrogated by any individual or group. Indeed, the United Kingdom Government have not offered any evidence, have they?

Lord Archer: That is absolutely right.

Q152 Andrew Mackinlay: And have the UK Government at any stage given you or the representative body, the National Council of Resistance, any evidence of why proscription should be continued?

Lord Archer: No, they have not.

Q153 Andrew Mackinlay: The rules of natural justice dictate, do they not, that if you are accused of something you are entitled to disclosure? I am not talking about the courts but about the political position. One is entitled to respond to or repudiate an accusation, but nothing has been given to you, has it?

Lord Archer: No. In fairness, I have to say that we are talking about intelligence from sources that cannot easily be disclosed as it would endanger them. That is the reason that the Government gave, and I respect it. However, we have no indication of what is motivating the Government to take the view that they do.

Q154 Andrew Mackinlay: I understand that Camp Ashraf-also called Ashraf city-is a camp of those people that is patrolled, guarded and policed by the United States.

Lord Archer: Now it is, yes.

Q155 Andrew Mackinlay: It is. And the United States has diligently maintained that those people have protected persons status. Can you help me on that? What is their status?

Lord Archer: Protected persons status means that they cannot be extradited back to Iran. The Iranian Government are, of course, desperate to get them back, and we know what would happen if they went back. Having protected persons status under the Geneva convention certainly entails that they are not terrorists in any way. They could not be awarded that status, if they were terrorists.

Q156 Andrew Mackinlay: I am told that the United States military command authorised, allowed or permitted them to have bank accounts and so on.

Lord Archer: Certainly. They were investigated-I think for 16 months, if my memory is right-by the United States authorities, who said that they were completely satisfied.

Q157 Andrew Mackinlay: My final question is this. It has been suggested to us, perhaps in your submission, that there has been a trade-off. You mentioned it a few moments ago. What do you know about it? Is it, "We'll keep them proscribed provided you play ball on nuclear."?

Lord Archer: Again, I must take care not to stray into territory that is sub judice. However, under the Terrorism Act the Secretary of State can include someone in the schedule if he is satisfied, in brief, that they are committing acts of terrorism. If he is satisfied about that, then he would be entitled to take extraneous matters into account, such as whether it assisted our diplomatic relations with Iran, or whether the Iranians would regard that as a reason for doing the things that we are asking them to do. What has been said by the Government-I certainly have not said the Home Office-via the evidence from the Foreign Office, is that the Secretary of State was satisfied of that. The evidence includes a long list of things that he took into account, however, all of which were deals with the Iranian Government.

Q158 Chairman: What would happen to the people in Camp Ashraf if the Americans ceased to protect them? Do you think that they would be received warmly by the Iraqi people, or would they effectively be driven out of Iraq?

Lord Archer: We do not know who the Iraqi people are, because there are obviously many different groups. There are the Shi'a and the Sunni. I have very little doubt there are groups in Iraq who would like to attack the people in Camp Ashraf, but there are others who regard them as the one force that could ensure that the two sides in Iraq unite. The trouble is that, if the Americans were to withdraw, there would be a very real attempt by elements loyal to Iran to get them back into Iran. Knowing what happens to people who criticise the Government in Iran makes that a very worrying aspect.

Q159 Chairman: What is the attitude of the Iraqi Government to Camp Ashraf?

Lord Archer: They tolerate it, and there is no hostility of any kind, as far as I know. I am reminded that a short time ago, 5.2 million Iraqis signed a petition saying that the people of the PMOI are the people who can give a hope of future peace in Iraq and hasten the withdrawal of the Americans, whom they did not particularly want to have there.

Chairman: Thank you.

Q160 Mr. Hamilton: Lord Archer, may I just turn to human rights in Iran? I know that you have some interesting information about popular dissent, which I imagine comes from Iran regularly. We know that Iran has a disturbing human rights record; we know that stoning to death and the death penalty are still practised regularly.

Lord Archer: Certainly.

Q161 Mr. Hamilton: We know that President Khatami tried, without much success, to reform the human rights record, and that President Ahmadinejad has perhaps been more oppressive. He has removed a number of human rights. For example-we have seen this quite starkly-many women have been arrested for not wearing the right attire.

Lord Archer: Indeed.

Q162 Mr. Hamilton: In our recent human rights report, we highlighted the continuing use of the death penalty. We know, for example, that in the last few weeks there have been riots in many areas of Iran, caused by popular unrest, and we know that they have been about the petrol price.

Lord Archer: That is right.

Q163 Mr. Hamilton: Although Iran has a lot of oil, it does not have the facilities to refine it. It therefore has to re-import the refined product. I want to try to pinpoint whether that dissent is caused by economic factors, or by the oppressive human rights record of the Iranian Government. The recent unrest seemed to be triggered by the fuel prices, but is it actually expressing a deeper dissent to do with the political situation?

Lord Archer: We certainly know that large numbers of women feel very much oppressed. We know that students were rioting-that is the only verb that could apply to it-at Tehran university, when the President visited last year. We know that university lecturers are being sacked because they do not follow the Government line. There is a very real human rights record. In fact, I believe that Iran has been condemned on 54 separate occasions by institutions of the United Nations concerned with human rights. It has, probably, the worst human rights record in the world.

What is causing the unrest is more difficult to assess. There is no doubt that people are very worried about the economic situation, not only about petrol. We know that large numbers of people are unemployed. We know that food is very difficult to obtain. There is unrest about the economic situation. Since it is that that usually triggers unrest, perhaps more immediately than concerns about human rights-only some families suffer from human rights abuses-I would suspect that it is probably the economic unrest. What is certain is that Iran is absolutely seething with discontent. There is no doubt that if there were an opportunity to change the regime, a very large number of Iranians would want to change it. I am told that a secret survey was carried out a short time ago, in which 94 per cent. of those interviewed said that they would like a change of regime.

Q164 Mr. Hamilton: President Ahmadinejad was elected on the basis that President Khatami's economic reforms had failed, that he had failed to deliver economic progress, and that the oil that Iran was lucky enough to have should be converted into prosperity for all. Are you saying that he completely failed? Do the reports that you receive tell you-from what you have just said, that is probably the case-that he has completely failed in that?

Lord Archer: I think that is so. Every report that we have in the press indicates that that is so. Most of the oil revenues previously went into weaponry. They did not find their way to people's standards of living. I think that there is very little doubt now that what he was trying to do has totally failed because it did not get people back to work and it did not get the economy moving.

 

Q165 Mr. Horam: Lord Archer, can we come on to Iranian influence on Iraq? There is a connection between the two. You mentioned the petition signed by 5.5 million people. Could you help us in giving some estimate of the extent of Iranian support for, or involvement in, actions hostile to British forces in Iraq? What evidence do you have about that?

Lord Archer: The most obvious recent example was the helicopter that was shot down with the loss of five British lives. That was shot down by a ground-to-air missile, which was undoubtedly supplied by Iran. We believe that they are supplying weapons on a very large scale. The Prime Minister himself said that at the Lord Mayor's banquet. He is quite convinced that that is happening. There is no doubt that there is a great deal of stirring up. This is a regime that believes that it is under instructions from God to export the revolution. It is a regime that wants to see Iraq going in the same direction. One could go on for some time. The revolutionary guard have their presence in Iraq, and we are almost certain that they are training insurgents to kill British and American forces. The answer to your question is yes.

Q166 Mr. Horam: What do you think are the objectives of the Iranian regime in Iraq? On the one hand, one could say that they might want a stable Iraq that is no threat to them militarily, given the history of the Iran-Iraq war. They might want that. On the other hand, they might want to export the revolution and cause huge difficulty for the American and British forces there.

Lord Archer: One thing that they will certainly want is to destabilise that region. They want to be the dominant power, because they believe that that is the way to export their brand of fundamentalism. They want to go beyond just getting rid of the Americans and British, although that is part of their agenda.

Q167 Mr. Horam: So they do not want to create some sort of stable Iraq in future. They want to create chaos.

Lord Archer: Quite the reverse. They want an unstable Iraq, I think. That seems to be the view of many Iraqis. I am told-I have just received this-that at the last estimate, there are 32,000 Iraqis on Iran's payroll. I confess that I do not know personally where that figure comes from, but that is the figure that I have just been given.

Q168 Mr. Horam: Thirty-two thousand Iraqis?

Lord Archer: Who, presumably, will be extremist Shi'as.

Q169 Mr. Horam: I think that you say in your paper that the United States and the United Kingdom will be better talking to Iran's exile group than to the Iranian regime.

Lord Archer: Yes.

Q170 Mr. Horam: What practical advantages would that bring?

Lord Archer: We say that for two reasons. The first is that there is to be some kind of barrier against this kind of Islamic fundamentalism, but what we have here are moderate Islamists, so it cannot be said that they are contrary to Islam, or that they are trying to undermine Islam. They are the people who would hold back the fundamentalists.

Q171 Andrew Mackinlay: Is there not evidence that the US, the UK and the United Nations have been made aware of the subterfuge of the nuclear programme by the people in exile?

Lord Archer: That is undoubtedly the case. The second point that I wanted to make was that it is difficult to know how to deal with an Iran that is spreading nuclear weaponry. One thing to do would be to go on trying to come to an accommodation with it. That has been tried for a long time. We know that the people there do not keep the deals that they make. It seems impossible that they have been offered almost every incentive and in the end none of it has come to anything.

The second possibility is to invade them, and nobody is suggesting that an invasion of Iran is the solution. The third possibility seems to be to do nothing and hope that in due course the thing will go away. We know that the likelihood is-it is the assessment of a number of experts-that they will have effective nuclear weapons by the end of the decade.

The only remaining option is to tune in to what we were talking about a few moments ago-the seething discontent within Iran. We know that there comes a stage at which people simply want to overthrow a regime, as they did in the case of the Shah. What they need is somebody to co-ordinate the activities. It is no use having a demonstration here and a public meeting there, and not co-ordinating them. The people who could co-ordinate them are the Council of Resistance. The one hope of solving this problem and changing the regime would be to talk to the Council of Resistance.

Q172 Mr. Hamilton: Thank you. Lord Archer, may I pick you up on that? Two thirds of the population of Iran are too young to remember the revolution of 1979.

Lord Archer: I was not suggesting that.

Q173 Mr. Hamilton: No, you were not, but why has a counter-revolution or second revolution not happened up to now? There have been co-ordinated riots and demonstrations on many occasions, yet they have been put down with incredible violence and oppression by the Islamic state. Why are you hopeful that that will happen at some time in the future if it has not happened already?

Lord Archer: Well, they are not finding it very easy to contain it. There were 500 demonstrations in one month last year, despite everything that the police could do. You can arrest people; you can torture a few. You might even open fire on them, although I do not think that there is much evidence that they regard that as a good solution. However, sooner or later, you are going to get demonstrations that you cannot contain, and I think that that is what is happening, despite all the repression. That being so, and knowing what we do about the internal situation in Iran, I should have thought that it is pretty fair to say that they are awaiting the opportunity. They will not try spontaneously, and there will not be a rising that goes right across Iran and can be effective.

Think of the Russian revolution. We know that the people of Russia were ready to rise in 1917, but it was not until there was somebody in the middle-good or bad-to organise the revolution that it took place. I think that that could happen in Iran, because we know that the Council of Resistance, which is the umbrella organisation including the PMOI, is well organised and does have a strategy. It could bring that together.

Q174 Chairman: May I put it to you that many Iranians in exile think that the PMOI is a small, very vocal group, which is active outside Iran but does not have any real base in the country?

Lord Archer: I suppose Iranians in exile-the Iranian diaspora-are like diasporas everywhere; they do not speak with one voice and all pass a resolution. I was thinking of Shirin Ebadi, a human rights worker in Iran, who has just written a very interesting book, particularly about the way women are treated there. She does not get on terribly well with the Council of Resistance because she thinks she can do more good by staying in Iran and will be safer if she keeps them at a distance; they think that she is too cosy, otherwise she would have been arrested and tortured by now. Of course, the diaspora does not speak with one voice, but I would be surprised if there is a very large proportion of the diaspora who think that the PMOI is small and ineffective.

Q175 Ms Stuart: I want to ask you about your views on some of Iran's neighbours, and I return to Mr. Horam's original question. What troubles me about the suggestion that the answer is to talk to Iranian exiled groups is that we talked a lot to exiled Iraqi groups about Iraq and what we got out of it was a whole bunch of misleading, out-of-date and inaccurate information.

Lord Archer: The information that we know has been given by the Council of Resistance up to now has transpired to be only too tragically accurate. It was they who first alerted the international community to the nuclear weapons programme in Iraq; they have given a great deal of information. I am supplied with a vast amount of information by them, probably more than by any one other single group, and I have not so far come across anything that has transpired to be inaccurate. I do not think one can say any more than that.

Q176 Ms Stuart: We must be careful of the parallels. If your information is correct, that needs to be put on the table as well.

I want to ask you what you think about the position of Afghanistan, because on the face of it, our interest in Afghanistan in defeating the Taliban and dealing with the possible resurgence of the Taliban coincides with Iran's interest. However, it would appear that in the more recent months Iran's position has not been quite as straightforward as that. What is your latest information?

Lord Archer: We know that Iran has been supplying weapons to extremist groups in Afghanistan. Quite what their relations are with any particular part of al-Qaeda, for example, we do not know, but there is no general council of al-Qaeda; they do not speak with one voice. There is no spokesman for them. So it could well be that certain people, even people who export terrorism like the Iranians, may not be on speaking terms with particular groups in Afghanistan. I would be ready to concede that.

Q177 Ms Stuart: Do you have more precise information than we currently have about Iranian activity in Afghanistan? Could you add something to the evidence we have that is in the public domain so far?

Lord Archer: No. If I obtain any, and if you will allow me to do so, I will be happy to submit it to the Committee.

Q178 Ms Stuart: That would be very helpful. There is one other thing: one of my colleagues asked a question about Iraq and you said, "Well, who are the Iraqis? You have the Kurds," and so on. We have just been to Baku in Azerbaijan and it came to me as a great surprise that there were 13 million Azeris living in Iran. To what extent can we speak about the Iranian people and to what extent are there other factions within it?

Lord Archer: We certainly know that the revolutionary guards have a very real presence there. There may be other Iranians who have a presence there, too; I suspect that if they cross the revolutionary guards they probably will not be there for very long as they will be assassinated. Azeris are probably a compact group, which, if I am right, do not really create serious problems for anyone. It may be that for that reason no one thinks that they want to be taken out. That is speculation, I accept.

Q179 Ms Stuart: It is an observation. The problem is that if things get difficult they may want to try and return to Azerbaijan, and then we have a serious problem on our hands.

Lord Archer: That may be a problem for the next Foreign Office Minister.

Q180 Mr. Moss: May I turn to relationships between Iran and the inner Middle East-Israel, Lebanon and that sort of area? Since the President came to power in 2005, it seems obvious that the anti-Israel component has been elevated, but how deeply does anti-Zionism run within Iranian society? Would it be any better if there were a regime change, for example?

Lord Archer: I think that the President is the first senior member of the Administration who has actually said out loud, "We want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth." There may be some anti-Zionism; there is certainly anti-Zionism within the regime because the Jewish group-since it was made up of all Jews-must have been targeted for that reason. The people were in prison certainly a few months ago and had been there for some time. I do not know whether the group has now been released.

We know that the regime is strongly supporting and supplying weaponry to Hezbollah, to Hamas and to the group within Palestine, the name of which escapes me for the moment. We know that, before he became President, he had established a group-again, the name of which escapes me-the purpose of which was to eliminate Israel.

Q181 Mr. Moss: If there were a regime change, do you believe that the attitude of the new Iran towards Israel would be markedly different?

Lord Archer: I cannot recollect much evidence of strong anti-Zionism under the Shah, and I certainly cannot recollect any external action against Israel under the Shah.

Q182 Mr. Moss: I mean if there were regime change from the present situation.

Lord Archer: Oh, I am sorry. You mean since the President came to power.

Q183 Mr. Moss: Yes. If there were a regime change now with the new people coming in whom you are talking about, do you think that there would be a marked difference in approach towards Israel?

Lord Archer: Whether there has been an escalation in the support given to Hezbollah, Hamas and the others is difficult to assess. Obviously, they do not send us specific reports of what they are doing, but we know that they have been much more strident in their pronouncements than previously.

Q184 Mr. Moss: What evidence do you have of Iranian involvement and influence in the Lebanon, particularly Hezbollah?

Lord Archer: We know that they supported Hezbollah strongly. In fact, we have the Prime Minister's authority for that. He dealt with it at some length at the Lord Mayor's banquet last year.

Chairman: The former Prime Minister.

Lord Archer: I will get used to that. It is like a new year, is it not?

We know that that has been happening.

Q185 Mr. Moss: Would you go as far as to say that Iran pulls Hezbollah's strings, for example-that it is in control of what goes on there?

Lord Archer: Again, it is difficult to say. I think that we could put it the other way round. They could probably pull the blanket from under Hezbollah, if they so chose, because Hezbollah seems to rest pretty heavily on their resources. How far they are pulling the strings, I do not know. At the very least, they have a common purpose, which is to eliminate Israel.

Q186 Mr. Moss: How active do you believe Iran has been in the Palestinian territory? For example, do you go along with the idea that the Iranians were instrumental in the recent activities of Hamas in Gaza?

Lord Archer: Certainly a lot of people believe that they were. What will be the effect now that Hamas has, as it were, joined the club, I am not sure. If you want to destroy Israel, there is everything to be said for supporting particular groups dedicated to destroying Israel. Once they have joined up, there is not much point in continuing to supporting them. But, whether or not that is the case, I certainly have no evidence either way.

Q187 Mr. Moss: Do you have any evidence of a very strong economic and financial commitment by Iran to both Hezbollah and Hamas? If that were true, would that be one of the reasons why there are economic problems back in Iran?

Lord Archer: Almost certainly, I think. We have a very rich oil country. If the oil had been wisely used, the standard of living would have been much higher. First of all, a great deal of the income was devoted to weaponry, and secondly, as you say, a great deal has been poured into international terrorism. We are not talking only about Hezbollah and Hamas. For example, only a few days ago there were extradition proceedings against former President Rafsanjani and others in relation to the bombing in Buenos Aires of the Jewish centre which cost so many lives in 1994. This has been going on for a very long time and is not confined to Israel.

Q188 Mr. Hamilton: Does Iran hate Israel or does Iran hate the Jews? Is it the Iranian state we are talking about or the Iranian people? The Shah had a very close alliance with Israel. Was that supported by the Iranian people? Is it the state of Israel that they are targeting or the Jewish people?

Lord Archer: It is certainly the state, because as we know the whole thing has stepped up in recent years. We know about the imprisonment of the group of people who could only have been targeted because they were Jews. That is certainly the state. It is part of the ideology because this is an extremist form of Islam, part of which wants to export Islam to the rest of the world and standing in the way is what it regards as an anti-Islamist outpost.

Whether it is true of the Iranian people is very hard to assess. One does not see it in ordinary newspapers every day of the week. It is not like Germany was in the 1930s. I have never come across a demonstration either way, and certainly not an anti-Semitic demonstration in Iran. I suspect that it is being whipped up by the Government and, to put it at its lowest, there would not be great resistance from the people if there was a Government who said, "We now want an accommodation with Israel."

Q189 Andrew Mackinlay: Lord Archer, picking up on what Malcolm Moss was asking, what is the position on Israel of the Iranian exiles with whom you have dealings?

Lord Archer: I have never heard an anti-Israeli word from them. I ought to have explained earlier. I wrote the letter initially to the Committee at the request of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom, the Chairman of which is my noble Friend Lord Corbett of Castle Vale. This note came from him and he is quite right that the NCRI is pledged to the peace process. It is true that I have never heard any suggestion that any part of the NCRI is anti-Israeli. It is not something that is greatly discussed, except in the context of the hostility of the present regime to Israel.

Q190 Ms Stuart: Given that we are talking about a country of which people have various impressions, did you see or listen to the programme that the BBC did on modern Iran? It sent out a CD to every MP. It was on the modern world and what life is like. It gave the impression essentially that the Government are out of tune with their people; the people are far more moderate. Do you think that is just PR or is that really how modern Iran is? I am getting terribly confused here.

Lord Archer: I have forgotten where the information came from.

Q191 Ms Stuart: The BBC ran a series of programmes on modern Iran called "Understanding Iran".

Lord Archer: I am not sure where they got the information from.

Q192 Ms Stuart: They talked to Iranians.

Lord Archer: I have come across colleagues in the House who have said, "Well I have visited Iran and I did not see anyone being tortured." We have to point out that torture does not normally take place in the market square. It would be difficult to gather any feeling about this. I would be surprised if there is any support for the Government line on this among the general public.

Q193 Sir John Stanley: Lord Archer, in your evidence you said that there was a broad expectation that, by the end of this decade, Iran would become a nuclear weapon state.

Lord Archer: Yes.

Q194 Sir John Stanley: Do you think that there is any policy option open to the British Government and the international community to prevent that from happening?

Lord Archer: One opportunity obviously is article 41 sanctions. It is only a personal opinion, but I cannot believe that article 41 sanctions, however rigidly applied, would actually bring down the Iranian regime, or that it will change its direction. What sanctions might do, however, is to exacerbate general unrest among the public. So it is possible. I would advocate article 41 sanctions, but without any belief that they would solve the problem.

As I say, there are only two other possibilities. One is to negotiate with the Iranians, hoping that we can persuade them to become much more peaceful and to become good citizens of the international community. But that is not their ideology. That is not why they participated in the revolution in the first place. I think it is virtually impossible that we could change their direction.

The third possibility is invasion, but I cannot believe that anyone regards that as a desirable way forward. The only way would be regime change, based on the unrest in Iran and the fact that, if there were a direction towards revolution, it would be strongly supported. That is by far our best hope.

Q195 Sir John Stanley: So you are giving us the clear view that you do not believe that there is any external, viable option to prevent Iran becoming a nuclear weapon state. You put your hope in the possibility of some form of popular uprising, à la eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet empire. Do you believe that the structure of the Iranian state, its security apparatus and so on, makes likely the internal combustion, of a democratic or semi-democratic nature, that you postulated earlier? Do you think that that is likely to happen?

Lord Archer: We know that it has not contained the unrest at the moment. There have been 500 demonstrations in one month. There have been constant demonstrations, including in the universities and so forth-and demonstrations by motorists. It does not seem that any repressive machinery can keep it down for ever. But what it does need, I think, is co-ordination and direction. That, I think, is where the hope lies.

Sir John Stanley: Thank you.

Q196 Chairman: Your paper rules out the military attack by non-Muslim foreign soldiers, but it is silent on the question of air strikes. Do you have a view about what might happen if there were to be air strikes on Iran?

Lord Archer: I personally would be against it. First, air strikes target the wrong people; the people who would be killed and maimed and whose livelihoods would be destroyed would not be the members of the regime. Secondly, it would still be an article 42 attack; unless it was sanctioned by the Security Council, it would be unlawful, and we saw what can happen when it was used before.

Q197 Chairman: So you are saying that in order to stop Iran's nuclear programme-I am following Sir John's question-we somehow or other have to wait for a revolution from the streets to change the nature of the regime?

Lord Archer: Not to wait, if I may say so, but to encourage. At the moment, we have the Council of Resistance waiting to intervene. We are doing the very best we can to undermine it. As I said, I have been careful about the sub judice rule, but if it were the case that they were not labelled as terrorists in the west-if it appeared that the rest of the world supported the Council of Resistance-that would make life much easier for them. I think that it would shorten the odds substantially.

Q198 Chairman: Lord Archer, thank you for coming here today. We appreciate your evidence, and we are grateful for your written submission. If you have anything else that you want to send us in writing, will be happy to see it.

Lord Archer: That is most kind. Thank you very much.

Chairman: We are now ending the public evidence session. We have a private meeting next, so I ask members of the public to leave quietly.