The rapprochement towards Iran over its “black gold” – oil - is depressing.
Ireland’s foreign minister said a few days ago that shifting from Russian oil towards consumption of Iranian oil would ease price and supply pressures. The United States and the European Union are attempting to conclude talks with Iran around a revived nuclear deal, which would remove some sanctions in return for a non-nuclear armed Iran.
This might sound reasonable, but can we honestly trust a regime that with has Iran’s bloody history?
When the regime came to power in 1979, the overthrow of the Shah was led by secular, student and religious groups. As soon as Khomeinites took power, the first people they started to kill were the very secularist groups that had objected to the way that Iran had been run. These secular groups did not object to the Shah on ideological groups but on the administration of the country - and they were the first the theocrats hung and shot.
In the early 1980s, Iran’s support of Hezbollah in Lebanon meant lethal technical and ideological support. Hezbollah went onto develop suicide bombing as a mechanism of war, with the bombing of the US Embassy in 1983 leading to over 60 people being killed. Other Hezbollah attributed attacks included the March 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing in Buenos Aires and the 1994 car bombings at the Israeli Embassy in London and attacks on a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires.
The tentacles of Iranian state influence and involvement in Hezbollah’s activities have always run deep, both ideologically and in the rearming and support for Hezbollah.
Furthermore, who can forget the 1987 kidnapping of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s special envoy, Terry Waite, who was held by a cell affiliated with Hezbollah. He was chained and kept isolated and alone for over twenty three hours of the day - for five years. His kidnapping showed how powerless we in the West had become in relation to Lebanon’s future and, ultimately, how powerless we were against a militant Iran that had helped to kidnap and hold a British citizen in front of our eyes. (This is even more poignant as we celebrate the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, after 6 years of incarceration by the Iranian regime.)
With the brutal suppression of internal demonstrations and dissent, the arming of terrorist groups and support for the mass murderer Assad in Syria, the Iranian regime has shown its utter ruthlessness in how it treats human life just to ensure its survival.
Today, it directly interferes in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen as the West stands back wringing its hands, just as it is doing against Putin’s assault on Ukraine. It remains a mendacious threat to stability in the Middle East.
Despite all this, just to get cheap oil, we are willing to rehabilitate this monstrous and murderous regime. The price we are willing to pay for cheaper petrol to go shopping is to sell out the lives of others in the Middle East to the theological zealots of Iran.
The question we need to ask ourselves is this: How many lives are we willing to sell out to save a few pounds on petrol from Iran? Or shall we just be honest and say: we don’t care?
Fiyaz Mughal is the Founder and Trustee of Muslims Against Antisemitism
