North Africa and the Middle East

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I disagree very strongly and I think that in 10 to 20 years’ time, the right hon. Gentleman will have been proved wrong. I think the situation is equivalent to 1989 and that is the direction in which those countries are heading. It is patronising and mistaken of him to believe that this is simply a repeat of the 1950s and 1960s.

Let us look at Libya specifically. Gaddafi is going to be a very peculiar, eccentric and isolated figure even within his own country. Everything is shifting against that man. When he came to power, the population was rural and there was an anti-colonial movement. He now faces a situation in which 80% of Libyans live in cities in which he is perceived as a colonial oppressor. He has gone from the bloodless revolution that brought him to power four decades ago to a bloody attack on his own people. What we are hearing in Egypt and Tunisia is not some accidental, sporadic pop-up that will be constrained by inevitable forces of tyranny or Arabic culture. It is probably something closer to what we have seen in central and eastern Europe and in Latin America in the past 20 to 30 years. Furthermore, it is in our political and moral interests to support it. Even if I am wrong and it is not an inevitability but only a probability that things are going in that direction, it is the direction in which we should be pushing. This is Britain’s opportunity and Europe’s moment, and that is the direction we need to go in.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I take absolutely no issue with the hon. Gentleman’s comment that it is our political and moral duty to do that. However, at the risk of rehearsing European history, the 10 countries that joined the European Union in 2004 were democracies before the iron curtain fell, so we were restoring democracy and we did it within the framework of membership of the European Union. It is different.

[Rory Stewart]

I thank the hon. Lady for those comments. The last thing that I, or any of us, want is to be starry-eyed about this. The differences that she has raised are incredibly important and have to be considered in relation to how we speak to the middle east. The whole movement in central and eastern Europe and the ability to speak about democracy, liberty and joining NATO and the European Union was driven by the history of the 1930s and by the cold war. The language on the streets in the middle east today is very different. I am afraid that George Bush has done a great disservice to words such as liberty, equality and democracy—words that were on the lips of Vaclav Havel—which do not sit so easily today when we talk to those countries. We need new words and I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) talk instead about dignity and justice. We need a whole new language and it needs to be driven by them, not us. Freedom is not something that is given but something that is taken.

All those words of caution need to be considered, but we can, nevertheless, have a constructive role over the next 20 to 30 years in helping the middle east and north Africa be more stable, more prosperous and more humane than today. That is our mission. That is what we have to put our weight behind and is where we need to invest, which means a number of things for our foreign policy. Rhetorically and financially we have been stuck in Asia. Financially, if we include debts and veterans’ costs, we are spending more than £7 billion a year in Afghanistan. Rhetorically, we have been in China and Brazil for good reasons—they are big emerging countries—but this is a wake-up call about what is going on at the other end of the Mediterranean, which, in demographic, energy, religious and security terms will prove to be more important to our institutions and future than we have acknowledged in the past five to 10 years. We therefore need to invest in institutions.

I absolutely celebrate what the Foreign Office is doing in recruiting more Arabists. We need people who can focus on Azeri and people who speak different languages. There are not enough British ambassadors in the middle east who speak fluent Arabic. We need to make sure that Tunisia is no longer seen as some French extension and we also need to take into account the lessons from European enlargement. We need to look at the way in which the Commission approached Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia and we need to give the prestige and investment to our energies in north Africa and the middle east that was given to those countries.

If we get those things right and we keep to the principles on Libya that the Government have put in play—first, clarity; secondly, a coalition; thirdly, a recognition that we can set strategic direction without having to rush in with our troops; and finally, institutional investment over the next 10 to 20 years in our relationships with these countries—I think we will find that although we can do much less than we pretend, we can do much more than we fear.

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[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), who put her finger on the main issue that I want to address—no-fly zones. There has been a confusion between military and humanitarian aims and outcomes, and if we are not clear when we are taking military action and do it under the guise of humanitarian action, we might end up doing neither properly.

The hon. Lady also mentioned the move towards a duty to protect—a concept that the United Nations has started to develop. The question of the stage at which the United Kingdom feels that it should step into the breach in a duty to protect is a very live one. The Foreign Secretary said in his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee that it depended on circumstances. Of course, that is right, but this place, at some stage—probably not now—needs to think through what the duty to protect would mean in practice. If there was one mistake that the Blair Administration made in the run-up to the Iraq invasion it was that the debate should have been about “Why now?” rather than weapons of mass destruction. That should have been the logic of his Chicago speech and the subsequent actions.

However, today’s debate is about north Africa and the middle east. I should like to make a technical and narrow contribution about no-fly zones, which many people have talked about. Even when the Prime Minister raised the issue, I was not entirely convinced that he really knew what he was asking for. I thought it might be useful to look back at the experiences of previous no-fly zones and the lessons that we should have learned from them regarding where they worked and where they did not.

The no-fly zone in northern Iraq from 1991 to 2003 is, by and large, seen as a successful one. The reason is that the northern no-fly zone linked western air operations with Kurdish political parties and militias. In combination, they deterred Iraqi military action against the Kurds, which enabled a stable and sophisticated political and economically prosperous autonomous Kurdish cell. That success endured, even after the 2003 chaos. The northern Iraqi no-fly zone is arguably the most successful single engagement of the entire UK military engagement in Iraq since 1991. We ought to hold on to that point, because I do not think that the subsequent two no-fly zones were successful and we must consider why.

The southern Iraqi no-fly zone lasted from 1992 to 2003, and was imposed after the brutal repression of the Shi’as was effectively complete. In other words, we stepped in after the disaster had happened. No coherent Shi’ite political structure was accessible to the west and there was no appetite for direct action to prevent Iraq draining the southern marshes, on which the Shi’as depended for survival. From a humanitarian standpoint, the no-fly zone achieved little. As a coercive policy instrument, it achieved more. In 1994, it was extended from latitude 32° north to 33° north. To prevent a re-attack on Kuwait, its terms were widened to make it a no-drive zone for Iraqi armoured and mechanised divisions. In 1998, Operation Desert Fox was launched through the southern no-fly zone against sites associated with the development of weapons of mass destruction in central Iraq. The capture of Iraq’s senior commanders in 2003 revealed that Operation Desert Fox persuaded Iraq to abandon its manufacture of WMD.

The third no-fly zone I will discuss was in Bosnia from 1993 to 1995, and I am glad that there is somebody in the Chamber who knows much more about it than I. The assessment is that it was neither a practical nor a political success. Its effectiveness was limited by restricted rules of engagement that prevented action against helicopters, and by poor co-ordination between NATO and the UN. Its coercive impact was seriously undermined by a bitter political dispute between European capitals and the Clinton Administration over America’s preference to lift the arms embargo on the Bosnian Muslims and to strike the Bosnian Serbs directly.

I come now to the practicalities and what we should do in Libya. The conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yugoslavia indicate that air forces equipped with 1970s and 1980s Soviet and French aircraft are comprehensively outmatched by air forces equipped with modern western aircraft and training. Technically and tactically, the US and NATO have consistently proved their ability sufficiently to suppress 1980s vintage integrated air defence systems, and thus enable air operations at an acceptable level of risk. That does not necessitate the complete destruction of the IADS. Indeed, that was never achieved in Iraq or the Balkans. In Iraq, between 1998 and 2000, there were 470 separate engagements of American and RAF aircraft by Iraqi surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery. They were defeated by a combination of tactics, self-protection counter-measures carried by all participating aircraft, aircraft equipped with anti-radiation missiles designed to attack air defence radars, and airborne stand-off jammers. Importantly, the US remains the only nation with the electronic warfare and ARM capabilities needed to support sustained operations against a functioning IADS.

Clear command and control to prevent the destruction of friendly military or civil aircraft is a prerequisite for any air operations, as are legal and unambiguous rules of engagement. Ambiguities that might allow transport aircraft and helicopters to fly or for civilian aircraft to be used for combat operations provide obvious points of challenge. The southern Iraqi no-fly zone was undermined by Iraqi Airways flights between Baghdad and Basra, and Baghdad and Mecca. The Bosnian no-fly zone was rendered ineffective by the consistent use of helicopters, particularly by the Bosnian Serbs. The success of the US special forces and air power and the Northern Alliance’s forces in Afghanistan 2001 reinforces the experience of the northern Iraqi no-fly zone. To be effective, air operations must be designed to affect the surface of the earth and influence protagonists.

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case about something that we are only starting to understand—the strength of the armed forces involved. She is absolutely right to say that second-generation bits of kit are involved in the current situation, some of which have fallen into the rebels’ hands and are being used. However, it is dangerous to compare Libya with Bosnia, Iraq and other places, because the terrain is very different. A 750-mile stretch of land, 5 miles wide, is the area that needs to be controlled, so we are comparing apples and pears. I urge caution in suggesting that because something did not work in Iraq or Bosnia, it could not work in Libya, which is a very different ball game.

[Ms Stuart]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because he allows me to correct the impression I might be giving that I am against no-fly zones. I believe that we need to consider this carefully and positively and work out how to make it happen. In a sense the Libyan terrain is much easier, not least because, to state the obvious, it is much flatter than Bosnia in particular.

However, I do not believe that we yet have the local engagement with the political parties and groups on the ground that made the northern Iraq no-fly zone successful. We have not yet achieved that in Libya, and we need to establish it. I suggest that the Libyan air force capabilities are probably pretty much comparable with what Yugoslavia and the Iraqis had in the 1990s.

I think it was the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) who cautioned us to try to learn from history. As A. J. P. Taylor said, it is perfectly possible not to learn lessons from history and to make entirely new mistakes. There are some things that we can learn from no-fly zones. We need absolutely clear and unambiguous rules of engagement and absolute clarity about when the purpose is humanitarian and when it is military, and unless the no-fly zone supports something that is happening on the ground, it will not help. We had better be aware of that.

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[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). Of course, if he goes to Tunis, he will see the ruins of Carthage, where our dear Roman friends sought to ensure that the Carthaginians were destroyed and not permitted a future. We do not want to revert to that kind of parallel.

There are a couple of interesting anniversaries for us to consider today. One is dear to me: it is 30 years since the suppression of the Polish union Solidarnosc at the end of 1981. That great hopeful moment of liberation for the Polish people was then crushed by a cruel dictatorship, and we did not know how to respond. I hope that we can think constructively about what is happening in north Africa, which indeed is a revolutionary moment and a hopeful moment for the world. We have heard good speeches from both sides of the House in what is a most enjoyable debate to listen to.

Today is also an anniversary of a different sort, because exactly one month ago, on 17 February, the Foreign Secretary came to the House to make a statement on Bahrain, in response to an urgent question granted by Mr Speaker. The Foreign Secretary had just been there, and immediately following his visit there were the first demonstrations, repressions and killings; however, he did not seem to know that this was about erupt. It is that lack of what I would call intuitive imagination about world affairs that is the problem in our handling of foreign policy. I am not making a strictly party political point, because the same applies just as much to the previous Administration. I asked the Foreign Secretary to come to the House and, as the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) pointed out in his excellent speech, I asked him:

“Does he agree that a wind of change is blowing through the Arab world”?

I also put it to him that he should

“agree to a wide review of UK foreign policy in the region before it is too late”.—[Official Report, 17 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 1136.]

I wish that such a review had taken place earlier, but as so often in our country, it is now taking place under the force of events. There have been some unhappy reactions, but there is no point going over who made a mistake, who went on an arms sales trip, which planes could not leave the tarmac and the rest of it. Rather, we should work out how we need to go forward.

I will not talk about making any sort of military intervention in Libya, because there are others who are experts. However, if, as the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) pointed out, the intervention in Iraq helped to increase al-Qaeda’s standing and status, then perhaps non-intervention in Libya will have exactly the same impact. In the non-intervention philosophy of the 1930s—if I could take my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) a little before her birth date—the line was “Do not intervene”, and as a result the most horrible dictatorships and repressions were given the green light.

What do we have as a foreign policy? There are perhaps three components to our foreign policy: hard power, soft power and political influence. Sadly, because of cuts in the military our hard power is, frankly, decreasing. We have two aircraft carriers that are now Britain’s no-fly zones because we do not have planes that can fly off them. We are also heavily engaged in Afghanistan. However, just as America’s international influence was drained by its presence in Vietnam year after year—the Americans stayed for many years after they could serve any useful purpose, allowing Brezhnev and other horrible dictators to roam freely round the world—we need to look at reducing our profile in Afghanistan faster.

We need to look at the fact that we are cutting back our diplomatic service, including our diplomatic foreign language training schools. The hon. Member for Penrith and The Border appealed for more Arab-speakers. “Ditto,” say I, but we are not just cutting Arab-speaking diplomats; we are cutting our entire diplomatic presence.

Moving to soft power, the last time the Foreign Secretary came to the House to answer an urgent question, it was to defend the cuts to the BBC World Service. Two weeks ago the Secretary of State for International Development announced that he was cutting support for the International Labour Organisation’s core funding. However, there are trade unions in Egypt and Tunis; indeed, I have been meeting them on and off for 20 years, including the Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail, the one Tunisian trade union that has some independence. That union wants help from the ILO and the TUC, but we are cutting such aid at the very moment that it could be most useful in building civil society.

We are also reducing the number of students from those areas coming to study in Britain. We have fewer Chevening scholarships, but more importantly, we are saying to those students around the world, “You’re no longer welcome to come and study in mainstream British universities,” because of the anti-immigration nostrums of the Conservatives, in thrall to an unpleasant press. That is the decline in our soft power. I put it to the House that every Tunisian, Libyan or Egyptian who comes and gets a degree in Britain leaves a friend of Britain.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

Does my right hon. Friend also recognise the work of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy? Its funding has been increased, but it has also been working in Lebanon and Egypt on strengthening parliamentary democracy.

[Mr MacShane]

I am a fan of the WFD, but its total income is less than half the going rate for a banker’s bonus—[Interruption.] For once, that was not my phone. Madam Deputy Speaker and I have a relationship over my mobile phone—over it sounding in the Chamber, I hasten to add.

We are saying to the students of the region, “You are not welcome in Britain any more.” We are losing it on the soft power front. We are even withdrawing the pitiful amount of funding that we give to the Quilliam Foundation, whose director was imprisoned in Cairo and who knows the leaders of the Cairene opposition. It is preposterous that the Home Office should be shutting down that outfit at a time when it needs more help, not less.

I understand from replies to my parliamentary questions that the Department for International Development will spend more than £1 billion in the next four years on aid to India, a country with more billionaires and millionaires than we have, with a space programme—almost a man-on-the-moon programme—and with its own aid programme. We are giving £1 billion to India, yet we are not finding any money at all for Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco because they were not on any United Kingdom aid programme. Tunisia was not even a target country for our trade promotion activities.

That is what I mean about the Government’s utter lack of intuitive, emotional understanding of the changes that are about to take place. I know that there has been a crisis at the Foreign Office and that that has been uncomfortable for Ministers, and I do not blame officials, although perhaps I am not so sure about all the strategic top grip. I wrote an article in May last year saying that the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) should become the Foreign Secretary and that the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague) should become the Deputy Prime Minister. I still think that that is a job swap that the Prime Minister should consider. The foreign policy announced after the change of Government was very simple. It consisted of trade, trade and more trade—hence the embarrassment of the arms sales to which hon. Members have referred, which continued for two more days after 17 February when the Foreign Secretary came to the House to make his statement.

We also need to find ways of making our Parliament more involved and engaged in these extraordinary events, not only in the region that we are discussing but elsewhere around the world. Since November last year, I have made 11 requests at business questions for a debate in Government time on international and foreign affairs. We are now having such a debate, but only thanks to the Backbench Business Committee. Yes, we have debates on specific issues relating to the middle east or to a particular country or cause of concern, but we do not discuss synoptically what we want from our foreign policy. Of course we can all do the party political knockabout, but there should be much more that unites us than divides us. For that to be achieved, however, we need more parliamentary involvement. When hon. Members go abroad, the event should not be pilloried in the press as a “junket”, and the Whips have to understand that travel not only broadens the mind but makes for a better House of Commons.

Finally, I repeat the appeal that I made to the Prime Minister, to which I have received a sympathetic response, that we need to create a British foundation for democracy development. This would in part incorporate the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and transform it from a £4 million or £5 million a year outfit to an £80 million or £100 million a year organisation. Even that amount would still not be remotely close to the annual allocation that we will give to India and other countries that benefit from DFID aid. Let that be what we will learn from this whole crisis, which will continue, albeit unevenly. I learn from Le Monde today that there is a lot of repression in Morocco, for example, and I am worried about Prince Charles going there later this week. Tunisia is also far from stable, and Egypt still effectively has military power. Britain needs to think differently, and this House should be at the heart of making that happen.