MPs urge UK to lower tensions with Iran

British MPs are lobbying Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government to reduce tensions with Iran amid fears that the country may be dragged into yet another war in the Middle East. Veteran Labour MP Paul Flynn said that parliament was “alarmed that the UK is stumbling towards a war in Iran that would have dreadful, unforeseeable consequences.” In an Early Day Motion, Flynn warned that British MPs recall “in the past the momentum of preparations for war has frequently led to major wars.” The motion, supported by Welsh Nationalist, Green Party and Liberal MPs as well as several other Labour colleagues “urges the government to seek to reduce tension, pursue conflict resolution and cease war preparations.” The call, which comes after the UK severed virtually all diplomatic ties with Iran, follows former foreign secretary David Miliband joining in a chorus of warnings British government of the “risks of sleeping walking into a war with Iran.” “Nature abhors a vacuum and so does international politics. It cannot be filled by nudges and winks about military options,” Miliband said. “A concerted diplomatic effort on Iran is needed now to prevent the world sleepwalking into another war in the Middle East,” he said in a joint article published in the Financial Times back on December 5. Last Friday, chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee Michael Rifkind, who reports to Cameron, also clarified that he did “not advocate a military attack on Iran.” Rifkind, a former foreign and defence secretary, acknowledged that “mistakes” were made by Britain in the past,” including its collusion with the 1953 CIA-led coup to overthrow the elected Iranian government of Mohammad Mosaddegh. He also castigated the Iraq war and the discredited intelligence evidence of WMD that made it “much more difficult” for the West in its confrontational policy to end Iran's legitimate civil nuclear programme.