Irans behaviour – its interference in a malign fashion in Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq – suggests that the country poses a strategic threat to the peace of the region in which it wants to play an important role, British Defence Secretary Des Browne told Parliament.
It is now becoming clear that factory-grade and other weapons are increasingly going from Iran into both Iraq and Afghanistan. Those weapons include roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades capable of piercing armoured vehicles and killing our troops. Elements of the Iranian regime are therefore involved, Dr. Liam Fox, defence spokesman for the opposition Conservative Party, said at the Parliamentary debate.
Fox called on the government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown to offer assurances that the Iraqi border was sufficiently patrolled by Coalition and Iraqi forces to minimise the risk of such weapons being used against United Kingdom forces.
Fox said he was opposed to Iran being allowed to become a nuclear weapons state. Iran has been more than capable of carrying out terrorism by proxy. What that could mean in terms of terrorist blackmail from a nuclear armed state is something that none of us would want to imagine, he said.
Browne said that Tehran had an ambition to be a nuclear weapons state.
I am in no doubt that the international community has adopted the right position in relation to Iran, and also that we have to stay together and pursue the arguments with the Iranians, he said.
