CONSERVATIVE
New Forest East

FOREIGN AFFAIRS – IRAN & THE BALANCE OF POWER POLICY - 25 September 2019

FOREIGN AFFAIRS – IRAN & THE BALANCE OF POWER POLICY - 25 September 2019

Dr Julian Lewis: Do the Government accept that when we are dealing with two adversarial powers, both influential and both in the grip of religious fanaticism, the best policy we can adopt is one of the traditional balance of power, making sure that neither becomes too strong, but not fooling ourselves that the enemy of my enemy is necessarily my friend?

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State (Dominic Raab): I thank my right hon. Friend; I think Tito or Acheson put it rather less elegantly than he has. I agree with him about being clear-eyed about the countries in the region. Equally, we need to have some moral clarity about the aggressive nature of what Iran ​is doing. The way I view it is that this is less about the balance of power and more about ensuring that all countries in the region live up to the basic international obligations and responsibilities of the international community and international law.]