THE HAGUE, 02/11/05 - The conservatives (VVD) and Christian democrats (CDA) do not want to rule out military intervention to overthrow the present regime in Iran. This emerged during a debate organised by the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) on Iranian President Ahmedinejad's call to wipe Israel off the map.

According to CDA MP Ormel, "military intervention is not sensible at this moment. The Iranian rulers must first be completely isolated and the gap between the population and the regime widened as much as possible." He termed Iran "a nice country with a beautiful population and a pernicious regime." Ormel most wants to prevent the proud Iranian people from being driven into the arms of the ayatollahs again by over-threatening language from the West.

VVD MP Van Baalen does not believe in a soft approach to the Iranian regime. "That regime is not sensitive to words, only to actions." There must be sanctions, under which military intervention is also on the agenda," according to Van Baalen. But to start with, he wants all EU ambassadors from Tehran to be withdrawn, and a temporary cessation of mutual (business) contacts.

Van Baalen urged the suspension of the planned visit of a business delegation to Iraq at end-November. Nor does he want a visit by Iranian waste-water specialists to the Netherlands to be allowed to go ahead.

Ormel is hesitant about such measures. He does not want to break off all communications, but only, temporarily, the official contacts. In this connection, he also urges the suspension of Iran's membership of the UN.

Labour (PvdA) completely rejects force at this moment. The party's international secretary M. Laffeber said this might be possible on the far distant future, but then only if it was absolutely certain that all other methods had been exhausted. Laffeber does however see something in Van Baalen's suggestion of not allowing any scope for mutual visits for the time being.