Why West must face down Iran nuclear threats against Israel after oil tanker attacks in Gulf of Oman – Bill Carmichael

Gay people are executed by being hanged from cranes and women face imprisonment and torture for simply removing the compulsory Islamic headscarf. News organisations critical of the regime are firebombed and shut down and journalists imprisoned on the flimsiest of pretexts.

The Iranian state’s long record of imprisoning and killing its political opponents has earned it robust condemnation from international human rights bodies such as the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Given this history of misogyny, racism and homophobia, you might imagine that “progressive” activists in the West would be queuing up to demonstrate outside the Iranian embassy, burn the Iranian flag and impose sanctions against Iranian-made goods. Not a bit of it! In fact in the eyes of many on the Left, the bigots who run Iran can do no wrong.

Take, for example, the recent escalation of tensions sparked by attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The United States has provided persuasive evidence that the attacks were the work of Iranian special forces, including video footage that apparently shows the Iranians removing an unexploded limpet mine from the hull of a tanker.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, relying on British intelligence, says Iran is “almost certainly” behind the attacks. The Foreign Office says “no other state or non-state actor could plausibly have been responsible”.

But given the choice between backing the UK, or siding with our enemies, Jeremy Corbyn did what he always does – he sided with our enemies. The Labour leader claimed that there was “no credible evidence” to blame Iran – just as he refused to condemn Vladimir Putin for the Salisbury Novichok attacks despite overwhelming proof of the involvement of Russian intelligence agents.

According to the Left, the tensions in the Middle East are all America’s fault. Apparently US President Donald Trump is to blame for Iran carrying out attacks on civilian shipping in international waters. Go figure – as our friends across the Atlantic say.

To understand this escalating crisis it is necessary to grasp one vital point – the Iranian leadership has a deep hatred of Israel and has frequently threatened to “annihilate” the tiny Jewish democracy. For 12 years Iran plotted largely in secret to acquire the nuclear weapons that would allow it to do precisely that. If Iran obtained nuclear weapons and launched an attack, Israel would defend itself – as it has every right to do – and the result would be a nuclear conflagration that would likely kill millions.

To avoid this, the international community in 2015 entered into a well-meaning but naïve agreement with Iran that would slow down Iran’s production of enriched uranium needed to build nuclear weapons in return for the lifting of sanctions.

It was the signature foreign policy initiative of Barack Obama’s administration, but then candidate Trump emerged and called it the “worst deal in history” because it failed to address Iran’s ballistic missile programme and its malign meddling in other countries in the Middle East.

Trump also delivers on his promises so he withdrew from the deal last year, and reimposed sanctions. Iran’s response has been to ratchet up tensions in the hope of forcing concessions from EU countries and persuading them to buy Iranian oil in defiance of the US.

After the sanctions were tightened last month Iran announced, “if it could not export its oil, no other country would be allowed to export theirs”. The attacks on shipping in the Gulf of Oman are entirely consistent with this aggressive, bullying approach.

These are dangerous waters and the last thing anyone wants is another war in the Middle East. The UK, especially with someone as reassuringly calm as Jeremy Hunt in the Foreign Office, can play a 
key role in trying to de-escalate the conflict.

But we should be under no illusion as to the nature of the Iranian regime, and that its constant threats to destroy Israel are also a danger to the entire world.