Syria

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the political situation in Syria.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, the war in Syria is in its fifth year. The UN estimates 200,000 dead, 100,000 injured and 10 million displaced. The whole of the Middle East is riven by sectarianism and destabilised by global jihad. The borders of the Levant are in a state of flux. It is tempting to ask how we got here; what could we have done to avert this ongoing crisis? However, this is merely a Short Debate so I will not test the patience of the House.

Let me lay out how the situation has evolved since we last debated the Middle East earlier this year. We have not seen a rout of ISIL; we have not seen a consolidation of the opposition forces around the Syrian national coalition, and we have not seen a reduction in interventions by Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey on the side of the Islamists, and Iran, Russia and Lebanon for Assad.

What of the instability it is causing around the world? We know that the emergence of ISIL in control of its own territory is a pull factor for global jihadis. It is not just the threat from returning jihadis which should concern us, but also that ISIL is attracting allegiance from across various jihadi groups in the Muslim world. What started as a civil war has now become a struggle for the heart of Islam. It has become a geopolitical struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran. With the number of external factors of different ideological positions, it is several wars. It is a Shia/Sunni war, but it is also a Sunni/Sunni war. Its reach is global, as its resolution will impact on Islam and modernity well into the future.

My question for Her Majesty’s Government is simply this: where do the Government see this taking us and our interests in the maintenance of international peace and security—the obligation that permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council imposes on us? What is their assessment of what the end will look like? In fact, do they actually have a strategic vision for the map of the Middle East when this is all said and done? Are they considering the UK’s interests with a view to the very real possibility that we may have to recalibrate our alliances quite substantially at the end of this?

Let me suggest a few possible options we might need to consider. I urge the Government not to let the war against ISIL divert their focus from trying to get peace even in a rump Syria. Defeating ISIL cannot be done without peace in what remains of Syria. A lot of hope is placed on Iran and the potential success of the P3+3 talks culminating on 30 June. I share that hope for a successful outcome. While we hope that once Iran is inside the tent, so to speak, it will exert a more positive influence on Syria, we should not underestimate the difficulty in getting the moderate opposition—I am referring to the non al-Qaeda, non Jabhat al-Nusra and non Islamic State groupings—into peace talks.

We also have to consider the influence that Russia can bring to bear on Syria. I have been as vocal a critic of President Putin’s Russia as anyone in this House but I acknowledge that, despite their role in Crimea and Ukraine, we need the Russians to use what leverage they have with the Assad regime. It will not be a surprise to the House tonight that Russia may have to be Assad’s safe haven, if that is the price of peace in Syria. So my question to the Minister is: to what extent are we working with the US and Russia in trying to find a format for Geneva III? A propos peace talks, the Minister will be aware that the 37 groupings under the aegis of the revolutionary command council recently wrote an open letter to the United Nations special envoy Staffan de Mistura to say that they would not attend Geneva III, as they saw him as too close to the Assad regime.

While this is clearly unhelpful, the facts on the ground have changed and so must our analysis. From 2011 till 30 August 2013, when the House of Commons decided not to vote for limited intervention against Assad, I was clear that we could not have peace with Assad in situ. However, with the advent of ISIL, and the ongoing support by Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey for Islamists—I would go as far as to say support of jihadi groups by those countries—we now have to acknowledge that Assad’s people have to be part of the solution. In that regard, I make no criticism of Staffan de Mistura for seeking to bring the Syrian Government into the talks.

The interview that Bashar al-Assad gave to the US journal Foreign Affairs in March is instructive. Assad gets the fact that all wars end in a political settlement. As for preconditions for talks, he is no longer saying that he will speak only to representative political parties, but in fact makes it clear that he will speak to, in his words, “any political entity” or person. When asked about preconditions, he makes it clear that there will be no conditions. I am sure the noble Baroness will agree that this interview was clearly designed to send a more nuanced and calibrated message than we had from the regime until now.

I urge the Government to work towards talks even if their influence lies only with the secular moderate opposition, such that that exists. Even if we have only incremental gains towards a partial peace, it will signal the beginning of a transition. However, what of a wider strategy? I posed a question about where the pieces would fall in this kaleidoscope. If all we can achieve in Syria is only a partial peace, we must go for that. ISIL will be a feature of both Syria and Iraq as well as the rest of the Muslim world for some time. The caliphate it promotes is evidently attractive to many Muslims, and will continue to be so. In the next decade or so we might have displaced it in the Levant, only to see it emerge in poorly governed spaces in Africa or south Asia.

What is clear is that the ideology that ISIL feeds on has not come out of the blue, despite the protestations of the Saudis, Qataris and those who themselves have supported the propagation of these medieval versions of Islam. If we have a partial peace in Syria and Iraq, do we expect to continue to do business as usual with Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states or indeed Turkey? I suspect not. Those countries will have to account for their role in this ugly war to other Muslims.

The Islamic civilisation that existed before the events of 9/11 has disappeared permanently. The Muslim world can see that, hence we have seen the different reactions to the rise of Islamism in different countries. The recent elections in Turkey have provided a little hope that the fightback from modern Muslims has begun. In Egypt the reaction against the Muslim Brotherhood has been less gratifying, however popular those measures might be domestically. No liberal can say that a death sentence against Morsi is a good thing.

However, what is clear from these different developments is that the West—the United Kingdom, the European Union, the US—has no comprehensive strategic vision that can guide us. I urge the Government to start thinking about our interests from a longer-term perspective.

Since I have not used up my time, I take this opportunity to thank all noble Lords who will speak in tonight’s debate and who have stayed late to do so.