Page:Hansard (UK) - Vol 566 No. 40 August 29th 2013.pdf/56

1531 Hugh Bayley: Yes. I do not rule out the possibility that in future circumstances might be such that I support military action, but an overwhelming, international shared objective would have to be built around a military plan that appeared credible as a way of ending this conflict.

We know that it is much easier to start military action than it is to bring it successfully to a conclusion. After the first Gulf war the decision was taken not to topple Saddam but to impose a no-fly zone to prevent him from using his weapons of mass destruction. We and the Americans alone, under a UN mandate, operated that no-fly zone at a cost of millions of pounds for more than a decade, but it failed to bring Saddam to heel and eventually it escalated into the second, controversial Iraq war. Once a small military step is taken, conflicts are likely to escalate because of the uncertainty involved in military action. If the Government want the support of the House and of our people, they need to provide a clear strategy for managing a military campaign.

9.1 pm

Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con): In 1990, the brutal regime of President Assad senior ruled three quarters of Lebanon. I was on a visit to east Beirut, part of the free enclave, when the Syrian army broke through and captured the rest of the city. A few weeks after the fighting, they butchered, in cold blood, a friend of mine, and when they found his five-year-old son hiding under the bed they killed him too. I have never since had any illusions about how evil this man is, but I have healthy respect for how rational and clever he and his horrible allies, Hezbollah, are.

I and my friends who live in Lebanon are convinced that when Hezbollah’s star began to fade under the emerging Lebanese democracy—the Cedar revolution— Hezbollah manufactured a border incident with Israel to bring on a bombardment that hugely strengthened Hezbollah’s position in Lebanon.

I firmly believe that President Assad was responsible for this atrocity, and although I do not know why he did it I would not rule out the possibility, which bears a little thinking about, that the election of President Rouhani in Iran was a disaster for Assad and Hezbollah. One of the best ways of undermining the tentative moves President Rouhani might make to build links with the opposition and a more peaceful attitude to the west would be western bombing.

I support two things that the Prime Minister brought out very strongly, the first of which is that we will go through the UN process and take it as far as we can. I agree that we cannot make the UN process, successfully overcoming the veto in every case, an absolute requirement. There might, for example, be an occasion when a vital British interest is threatened but we cannot get UN support, as well as the humanitarian examples that my right hon. Friend gave.

In saying that I shall support the Government tonight I would like to make three brief points. First, we must listen and not simply talk to countries in the neighbouring area. Secondly, we must continue to build on the excellent work we are doing in neighbouring countries, especially Lebanon and Jordan, because that is what is preventing a national horror from turning into a regional catastrophe. Thirdly, we must remember that if we take military action, and if it is to have any effect at all, we must do so with the full intention of being willing to turn up the wick if the other side responds in the wrong way, which is a sobering thought.

9.4 pm

Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP): “Full stop, end of story.” Those five glib words were the best assurance that the Prime Minister was able to offer the House today against all the concerns being expressed about the risks of wider consequences of rash military intervention. It might be okay for the Prime Minister to negotiate the sophistry of the different sensitivities and anxieties in this House about whether or not there is a precise legal justification for military intervention in the current situation, but it certainly will not answer the exigencies of the situation that will open up once the machinations of intervention commence and once the exigencies of conflict are engaged, not just within Syria but potentially in the wider middle east.

Nor will that answer the serious issues that will arise—the Prime Minister seemed to comfort himself with that—potentially radicalising a whole new generation of Muslims, not just here but in other parts of the world, as they see again a western-driven intervention in this situation, but the west failing to act on continuing excesses and violations against the Palestinians, including the use of chemical weapons, which everybody knows were used. The opposition then came in the form of US vetoes, in which many people in this House seemed complicit and comfortable with. Today we are hearing the rightful indignant condemnation of Russian and Chinese vetoes that have already been exercised in relation to Syria and more of which we are expecting soon.

The Prime Minister told us that he and the National Security Council are assured that research shows that the Muslim population here will not be antagonised, because they will understand the precise legal justification—that intervention was purely a response to this use of chemical weapons and nothing else. Even if people believe that that is the mood of many people now, will it remain the mood once the wider difficulties are created, and once the military intervention finds itself embedded in an ever more difficult and ever-changing situation?

It is all very well for the Prime Minister to say that the intervention is purely on the basis of the use of chemical weapons, not to impact upon the wider civil war in Syria and not to get involved in any other complications in the wider middle east. The fact is that our rightful outrage which might motivate military intervention does not excuse us from having moral responsibility for any outcomes that might flow from that intervention.

Naomi Long: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that part of the problem is that the legal justification is the humanitarian crisis? Even without chemical weapons, there is still a humanitarian crisis. How would we justify stopping action?

Mark Durkan: I thank my hon. colleague for that point. Those of us who have concerns about the Government’s position are not saying that there should be no action. Clearly, action is needed on a humanitarian basis, but the idea that that can best be expressed in military intervention in support of the headlong rush that is coming from the States in the name of retribution,