Tuesday, 15th February 2011
West must not allow Iran to hijack Egypt, Tunisia revolutions [VIDEO]
The power vacuum created by popular revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia could lead to growing Iranian influence across the Arab world, an influential British MEP has warned.
Conservative member Struan Stevenson, who heads the European Parliament’s Friends of Free Iran Intergroup – which aims to build links with pro-democracy groups opposed to Iran’s hardline regime – said Tehran regarded recent events across the Middle East as an opportunity to spread its fanatical ideology.
He said that the West needed to maintain pressure on the new regimes in Egypt and Tunisia to oversee a sensitive transition to representative democracy that did not allow religious extremist political parties to fill the void.
Mr Stevenson said:
“In first Tunisia and now Egypt, people power has succeeded in dislodging once all-powerful dictators. We must welcome that.
“However, we must also avoid the naive assumption that robust, Western-style democracies will now flourish.
“There is the real danger that the power vacuum will be filled by those with far more malign motives.
“Already, the leaders of Iran’s brutal, fascist regime are rubbing their hands with glee as one Arab dictator after another is toppled.
“By backing the extremist parties previously kept in check by the autocrats, the Iranian rulers hope to replicate their own hardline Islamic takeover in 1979.
“At the same time, the Iranians’ response to street protests in Tehran and elsewhere shows they will continue to come down on their own people like a ton of bricks.
“The West cannot allow Egypt, Tunisia or any other Arab nation to become a hotbed for religious extremism and intolerance like Iran. Such an outcome would destroy the Middle East peace process and put Western nations at the mercy of terrorist attack.
“I hope the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs Baroness Ashton, President Obama and others step up to the plate to ensure Iran is kept at bay and true democracy can be allowed to take root.”
