Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 179)
WEDNESDAY 4 JULY 2007
LORD ARCHER
OF SANDWELL
QC
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%. 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. 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 saddle—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.
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