Mr. Michael Meacher (Oldham, West and Royton) (Lab): This has been an important and poignant debate, not least because of the passionate speech that
we have just listened to. However, I must say that the debate should not have been held on a motion to adjourn. The issue it addresses is crucial, and the Government should table a motion on it explaining their policy and pointing a way forward, for all parties and Members to take a position on. We will undoubtedly return to this issue in the near future, and I hope that when we do it will not be in an Adjournment debate, but that the issue will be treated with the utter seriousness that it deserves.
There has been a good deal of comment on the most recent twist in US policy, but the tragedy for Iraq in respect of the latest US troop surge is that extra troops are no answer to a crisis whose solution is political but for which there is currently no political solution in sight. That policy will certainly greatly increase American casualties, and there will be even more Iraqi civilian casualties, especially if Sadr city is barricaded off, but there is no reason to believe that it will fare any better than the last attempt to shore up authority in Baghdad—“Operation Forward Together”—which collapsed bloodily last year because extra troops did not make any difference. What is particularly horrifying about the new policy is that it is less about securing any realistic, positive, long-term solution than it is about avoiding the perceived humiliation of the Baker-Hamilton, Iraq Study Group proposals—and it is also, I suspect, about the desperate hope in the mind of President Bush of being able to hand on to the next President the final ignominy of defeat and withdrawal.
Once again, we seem to be following at least the spirit of President Bush’s line—judging by the pro-war foreign policy speech that the Prime Minister gave aboard HMS Albion in Plymouth a fortnight ago. I must say that one cannot have it both ways by making overtly bellicose speeches in support of an embattled US President while expecting to be treated seriously in trying to fulfil the role of peacemaker by kick-starting the long-suffering middle east peace plan.
It is not, however, only the military strategy that is misconceived. There are also questions to be asked about the infrastructure. Some people, including Kofi Annan recently, have said that the fundamentals of life, such as water, electricity, health, education and domestic security, are incomparably worse now than they were under Saddam Hussein.
It is also immensely important and significant that—my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) rightly drew attention to this—a new draft law is about to be pushed through the fledgling Iraqi Parliament by the United States that will set up contracts to allow major US and British oil companies to extract substantial parts of the oil profits for a period of up to 30 years. No other middle eastern producer-country has ever offered such hugely lucrative concessions to the big oil companies. OPEC—the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries—has, of course, always run its oil business on the basis of there being tightly controlled state companies. Only Iraq in its current dire situation, with US troops propping up its Government—without them the Government would not survive—lacks the bargaining capacity to be able to resist. If this new draft law is conceded by the Iraqis under the intense pressure that is being put on them, it will lock the country into a degree of weakness and dependence for decades ahead.

The neo cons may have lost the war, but my goodness, they are still negotiating to win the biggest chunk of the peace, when and if it ever comes.
Ms Katy Clark: My right hon. Friend will be aware that the anti-war movement has been saying for a long time that this war was about oil. Does he agree with me that, if this oil law is put into effect, it will have a very serious long-term effect on the west? There will be a huge amount of resentment in Iraq if foreign multinational companies take the profits from—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Interventions must be brief; many Members are waiting to speak.
Mr. Meacher: I agree with my hon. Friend. This rearguard attempt to pre-empt the lion’s share of the remaining oil and the massive future profits over a 30-year period—there is no authority to extract it from another country without its agreement—can only intensify the insurgency. It is bound to foster much-increased resentment, as my hon. Friend says, and increase the violent resistance, even when the occupation has come to an end. Above all, this policy is utterly short-sighted, because it is diametrically opposed to the policy into which the whole world will ineluctably be forced by the accelerating onset of climate change.
It is not only in respect of Iraq that the United States is raising the stakes. In his speech in Dubai just before Christmas, the Prime Minister again denounced Iran. Anyone who read that speech will know that he took a far more belligerent line than other British or European representatives, or even than patient unofficial US representatives such as James Baker. There is already a huge US military build-up around Iran—in the eastern Mediterranean, the Arabian sea and the surrounding land area—and talk persists about an Israeli attack, perhaps even a nuclear attack, on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The truth is that Iran has done nothing illegal. It has demonstrated no territorial ambitions. It has not occupied any foreign country—unlike the United States or Israel—and it has hitherto complied with its obligation under the non-proliferation treaty to allow inspectors to “go anywhere and see anything”, as the phrase has it, unlike the United States and Israel, which have refused to do so. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) said, Israel has refused to recognise the non-proliferation treaty and holds between 200 and 500 thermo-nuclear weapons, targeted at Iran and other middle east countries.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con): What evidence does the right hon. Gentleman have to make such a strong assertion against Israel?
Mr. Meacher: I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman is referring to. There is no question but that Israel has a very substantial number—generally reckoned to be well in excess of 200—of thermo-nuclear weapons. Of course, we do not know the targeting of those weapons, but it can be strongly expected that they are targeted particularly against Iran, as well as some other countries in the middle east.

Nor do any other of the west’s arguments for hostilities against Iran hold water. It is said repeatedly that Iran is about to produce a nuclear bomb and cannot be allowed to do so. In fact, all the evidence suggests—there is a lot of it, and it has been carefully trawled over—that Iran is not about to produce a bomb and is nowhere near doing so. It is believed to have enriched uranium to roughly the 3.5 per cent. level, which is certainly enough to make nuclear fuel, as it has said is the intention. However, enrichment of uranium to a 90 per cent. level, and in quantities of 50 kg to 100 kg, would be required in order to make a single bomb.
The argument is often made that Iran should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons. I have no brief for Iran. Much of the regime is appalling in terms of its suppression of progressive politics and its record on human rights, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether we are entitled to threaten a military intervention. On the question of whether Iran should have nuclear weapons, who actually decides that? What right does the US have to decide who should or should not have nuclear weapons? Iran is surrounded, to the west, north and east, by countries with nuclear weapons—the US in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in the Indian ocean, and Israel, China, Russia, India, Pakistan and now even Korea. It is hardly surprising that Iran wants similar protection.
Mr. Mark Francois (Rayleigh) (Con): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Meacher: No, my time is running out.
As for us, what moral authority do we have to say that Iran does not need nuclear weapons for self-protection when the UK Government are about to replace Trident with another round of nuclear weapons for exactly that quoted reason?
The truth is that there is no legal basis or military rationale for an attack on Iran. The UN Security Council would never authorise it, because Iran has not breached the terms of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Nor can the US or Israel claim that they have a right to a pre-emptive strike—a phrase that has been used. By long established law, a pre-emptive strike is justified only to defend against an imminent and certain attack. To claim the right of self-defence against an attack that might or might not emerge in five years’ time is to claim the right to wage war whenever one chooses. I remind the House that that was one of the two grounds on which the Nazi leaders were convicted and executed at Nuremberg.
In my opinion, it is unlikely that, militarily speaking, sustained air bombardment would destabilise, let alone overthrow, the regime. The policy would be counter-productive. The far more likely result is that such strikes would strengthen rather than weaken the clerical leadership and harden the resistance even of a recalcitrant nation behind it. Air blitzes never worked in the last world war. They did not work in Korea or Vietnam—or in Lebanon—and there is no reason to suppose that that would be any different in this case.
Even if all the military targets could be put out of action, which is highly unlikely, Iran has millions of Shi’a supporters in Iraq and Afghanistan and it is likely that they would rise in revolt. It must be very doubtful whether US forces in the region could contain such a heightened and widespread insurgency. I recall the words of an Iranian general to his counterpart—“You can start a war, but it won’t be you who finishes it.”