By LORD ALTON OF LIVERPOOL
Source: Middle East Times
LONDON — The Iranian regime raised the stakes over its nuclear standoff with the West last week as it test fired medium- and long-range missiles while a senior aide to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei threatened that Tehran would "set fire" to Israel and coalition vessels in the Gulf if attacked.
It is not a coincidence that the latest act of provocation by Tehran came a day after the European Union's French-led presidency announced that the 27-nation bloc's foreign policy chief Javier Solana would be meeting with Iranian officials to discuss Tehran's response to a revised package of incentives the world's major powers offered to it last month in return for a halt to uranium enrichment.
The French Foreign Ministry announced last Tuesday that Iran's response to the world powers' offer – which came in the form of a written letter – was oblique in that it did not answer the actual question of whether Tehran would suspend enrichment as the United Nations Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency have repeatedly demanded.
In fact Tehran's answer was loud and clear, with a range of 2,000 kilometers and carried a potential for a nuclear warhead that could strike Tel Aviv or parts of Mediterranean European states.
The firing of the Shahab-3, and possibly the newer-model Shahab-4, has more of a political motive than being meant as a military operation to improve Iran's combat readiness.
Iran is testing the international community to see the level of brazenness it can get away with. As such, the West ought to display a proportionate response.
We should not jump the gun and brace ourselves for any military confrontation. Nor does the answer lie in maintaining the status quo, which Tehran would pick up as a signal to further pursue its aggressive policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip and step up its nuclear proliferation.
Appeasement only convinces the regime that the West is weak. It certainly doesn't help that Paris announced last week that it still hopes to continue dialogue with Iran. Nor does it send the right signals to Tehran that the EU continues to maintain the main opposition to the regime on its list of groups facing an asset freeze.
The announcement on Thursday by French energy giant Total that it would not be investing in Iran for the time being given the present risks is a step in the right direction. The EU – still Iran's major trading partner – should cut all diplomatic and trade ties with Tehran.
It should also lift the unjust ban on the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) which has for the past six years served as the greatest concession to the mullahs.
Britain, which has publicly admitted that it had banned the PMOI at the regime's behest, was forced to de-proscribe the group in June after the Lord Chief Justice ruled that labeling the group as terrorist was "perverse" and "unlawful."
The EU-wide ban on the group was based on the British proscription. With the latter now lifted, the EU Council of Ministers no longer has any excuse to maintain the ban. And given all of Tehran's aggressive activities, it has no political justification either.
Lifting the ban on the PMOI would be precisely the proportionate response that Tehran needs to see to have second thoughts in the future about threatening to annihilate Coalition troops in the region.
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David Alton is a crossbench member of the United Kingdom's House of Lords.
