"The war in Iraq seems to be shifting seamlessly into the war in Iran," leading academic Professor Ali Ansari told the Fabian fringe event 'What do Iran's democrats want?' in Bournemouth.

Speakers included Professor Ali Ansari (St Andrews University), Professor Volker Perthes (German Institute for International and Security Affairs), Nazenin Ansari (Kayhan), Professor Abbas Edalat (Science and Arts Foundation), Paul Hilder (Avaaz), Nazanin Afshin-Jam (Iranian-Canadian human rights activist), Sunder Katwala (Fabian Society).

The Fabian Society and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung held the event to discuss the looming Iran crisis, and whether and how outsiders could best show solidarity with those working for democracy and human rights in Iran. Participants agreed on the importance of avoiding a military response, but disagreed on what alternative strategy should be adopted.

A military strike by the US would be 'a complete disaster' for Iranian reformers and democrats said Ansari, but he warned that a European 'hands off' approach to Iranian democratisation had handed the initiative in the crisis to hardliners in both Iran and the United States.

Professor Volker Perthes, among the leading European analysts of Iran, agreed about the growing threat of war: If the current US administration is convinced that Iran has acquired a military [nuclear] usable capability,… that somewhere next spring or summer there will be bombings", he said. But Perthes said that proliferation had to be the priority. A diplomatic solution depended on as broad an international coalition as possible but also on communicating to Iran that "our conflict is about proliferation and not regime type, or regime change", he said.

Professor Abbas Edalat challenged the idea that the European diplomatic approach is independent – 'Europe has simply tail-ended the US', which he saw as 'the back seat driver'. This approach would ultimately legitimise a US-led war, he said. Edalat argued that the priority issue for British citizens should be to pressure the UK government to withdraw its troops in Iraq from the Iranian border and to end sanctions.

'The only long-term solution is through the democratisation of Iran', said human rights advocate Nazanin Afshin-Jam. But she stressed that 'military intervention is absolutely is not the way. Any sort of advancements the civil society within Iran has made thus far will all be wiped off the map'. This would be the only course of action which could unite the regime and the Iranian people in a defence of Iranian sovereignty, she said.

A distinction between what governments and civil society actors should seek to achieve was central to the discussion.

Nazenin Ansari, a journalist with Kayhan, called on civil society voices to "keep the names alive" of political prisoners and activists detained in Iran and for the international media to "ask the questions that Iranians cannot ask" in holding the Iranian regime to account, and on labour, teachers' and students' unions to show solidarity with their Iranian counterparts.

Paul Hilder reported that Avaaz.org were considering an open letter to the Iranian people. Iran's right to a civil nuclear capability should be recognised, but combined with a call for pressure on the Iranian regime to de-escalate the current crisis through a voluntary temporary suspension of enrichment.

The forthcoming parliamentary elections would be a critical moment. Pressure to prevent reformist candidates being blocked from standing should be a priority for civil society pressure, Hilder argued.

Professor Ansari stressed that "the free flow of information has a tremendous impact" and that "young Iranians are hungry for this kind of information, through the internet, satellites and so on". But Ansari warned of repeating the mistakes of the Khatami reform era when outsiders treated anyone connected with the regime with mistaken suspicion borne of a simplistic reading of Iranian society.

The speakers were unequivocal in their disagreement with a suggestion from the floor that President Ahmadinejad's views on the holocaust were being misunderstood.

Perthes said he had to break off long-standing links with the Iranian institute which had organised the conference questioning the Holocaust. 'I had to tell them, you are also insulting me as a German, We have done sixty years of research', he said. 'I believe in engagement. So it is difficult. US voices also said they would break off links – but they did not have any links to begin with'.

'Ahmadinejad believes what he says. Does that represent broader views in Iran, I'm happy to say no … He can go to Columbia and say there are no homosexuals in Iran, and when everyone laughed at him I think he was genuinely shocked. This is an absurdity. If there are no homosexuals in Iran, then why is he executing them?', asked Ansari.

Nazanin Afshin-Jam called for international pressure on the Iranian regime to end child executions. (http://www.stopchildexecutions.com)

There was agreement that multilateral negotation over proliferation meant working with the Iranian regime. Former Labour MP Malcolm Savage spoke from the floor, reminding the meeting that many had been incredulous a decade ago about the possibility of negotiations with Sinn Fein.

Speakers disagreed about sanctions. Abbas Edalat condemned sanctions as a prelude to military action. He reported that his efforts in establishing the Science and Arts Foundation, an NGO aiming to provide internet access to Iranian schools, had been hindered by the sanctions regime. Paul Hilder agreed, suggesting that sanctions "do relatively little to retard the nuclear programme, but a great deal to strengthen the current regime, and weaken the chances of democrats."

Nazenin Ansari argued that sanctions should be applied to companies rather than individuals, particularly those associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, whose economic interests stretch from household products to armaments and elecommunications. The profits finance the Basij and others implicated in the clampdowns on pro-democracy activists, she said. Nazanin Afshin-Jam also argued for carefully targeted sanctions, such as freezing the bank accounts of mullahs involved in political oppression.

Iran is not going to disappear from the global agenda. Ansari argued that Europe would need to "come to terms with it, and develop an understanding and knowledge of the country that has been missing for the past 40-50 years".

Whatever the disagreements among participants, the need for further and deeper engagement to wrest the initiative from those both within Iran and outside that would raise the confrontational rhetoric to the point of war, was seen as imperative.