Letters
From N. Fowler.
The Financial Times – Sir, I am shocked by the ignorance of Jonathan Clarke ("Europe is underselling diplomatic expertise to America", May 10). It is precisely that kind of diplomacy (otherwise known as appeasement and business as usual with an oppressive regime) that the oil-hungry European Union has been shamefully following for decades, with nothing to show for it but prolonging the regime and the suffering of the Iranian people. What moral high ground remains for the EU if it continues to do business with tyrants? More diplomacy with Iran? Not in my name and not in the name of the Iranian people! Would Mr Clarke have advocated more diplomacy with South Africa in the apartheid years? Were sanctions wrong then?
Particularly shocking is Mr Clarke’s passing reference to Iran’s pro-democracy movement as "shadowy"; he is replicating the kind of disinformation that is put out by the Iranian regime in order to discredit its main pro-democracy opposition. Yes, currently they are officially a "terrorist" organisation, but he clearly does not know about the meeting of world nations in Cairo in 2000 when heads of state made mutual pacts not to allow opposition movements the space to operate in each other’s territory, no matter how just the cause. As admitted recently by Jack Straw, former UK foreign secretary, the US and the EU criminalised Iran’s armed pro-democracy movement as a favour to the Iranian regime. That very bad "diplomatic" decision has ensured that the Iranian pro-democracy movement has had its hands tied behind its back ever since.
The People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran is now unjustly labelled as terrorist as part of a strategic global power struggle that actually has little to do with them. (Yes, it is an unfortunate name, and no, it has nothing to do with other organisations with the word "mujahideen".)
How clearly we have seen the folly of foreign invasion and occupation in Iraq; the way ahead for Iran must be in the hands of Iranian people. They and they alone can ensure the popular uprising that would have come so much sooner if the west had not been so anxious to befriend the Iranian regime. The terror label must be removed and the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran must be released from where they are being held prisoner on the Iranian border by the US.
N. Fowler,
Birmingham B14 7QA, UK
