Lord NORMAN LAMONT of LERWIC

The prospect of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is undoubtedly alarming and the threatening remarks by President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad about Israel are unacceptable. But the west should be careful about embarking on an Iran strategy without an end-game. Both sides in this dangerous dispute risk finding themselves in a situation from which they cannot withdraw.

It is fashionable to decry the efforts of the EU3 – Britain, France and ¬Germany – in their ongoing talks with Iran. I believe that the instincts of Jack Straw, British foreign secretary, are absolutely right and it is only common sense to seek a diplomatic solution before a potentially catastrophic ¬confrontation.

Some commentators talk about Iran as though it were the old Soviet Union – a totalitarian state with no dissent. Iranian democracy is limited and chaotic but it is not the Soviet Union. The recent presidential election with a range of hardline and reformist candidates was more vigorously contested than the election in Egypt that was so lavishly praised by President George W.?Bush. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad has faced plenty of opposition from the Iranian parliament, which has been as energetic as the US Congress in rejecting nominations for office. And local newspapers have criticised the president’s comments about Israel.

The constitutional position of the Iranian president is not comparable with that of his US counterpart. Both the nuclear issue and foreign policy in Iran are the prerogative of the supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not the president, and there have been reports of strains between the two leaders.

History plays an important part in US and Iranian attitudes. Americans remember the humiliating hostage crisis. For Iranians, the memory is of hundreds of thousands of dead in the Iran-Iraq war. They note that Saddam Hussein has been charged with using weapons of mass destruction against his own people but not against Iran. Older Iranians see parallels between western intervention on the nuclear issue and the overthrow in 1953 of Mohammed Mossadegh, then prime minister, in a US and British-backed coup, for daring to nationalise Iran’s own oil.

For all that, Iran is neither as anti- American nor as religious as it appears. The most moving condemnation of the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 that I read was from Mohammad Khatami, then president, who called them “an act of nihilism” with “no place in Islamic thinking”.

Yet US strategy has been to drive Iran further into international isolation, even trying to stop Pakistan, India and Iran co-operating on a gas pipeline that would give Iran a vested interest in regional stability and bring economic benefits to all three countries. This policy makes no sense.

The west has generally been ¬reluctant to recognise the reality of Iran as a regional power although ¬Iranian influence has been considerably increased by the Iraq invasion. The US needed – and indeed received – help from Iran when it invaded Afghanistan. Although Iran did not oppose the Iraq invasion, Tehran has since been shut out of any economic role in the reconstruction of a country in which it has a natural interest.

Iran’s co-operation will continue to be needed in Iraq. But there are strong emotions in Iran about its co-religionists. Two years ago when I visited Tehran, the city centre was dominated by massive photographs from western newspapers of Muslim prisoners being abused in Abu Ghraib prison.

There are already US sanctions against Iran; like the sanctions against Cuba, they have probably helped to prop up an unpopular regime. In both countries, the government has been able to demonise the threat from abroad. Every time an Iranian aircraft crashes, it is blamed on sanctions. America may be content to stop Iran selling gas to India but it is unlikely to want to hurt itself with an oil embargo. In any case it is difficult to see how further sanctions will change anyone’s mind.

It may be that we are now past the point of no return. But it must be hoped that, even at this late stage, political dialogue will continue in an attempt to address Iran’s genuine security fears. A better policy than sanctions would be to do the opposite: reopen the US embassy, drop all sanctions other than those involving military technology, and encourage investment in Iran and as much contact as possible with America. That strategy would please many Iranians and make the regime in Tehran really nervous.