National Security Situation

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to talk between the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and the noble Lord, Lord West. One is a great humanitarian and the other is—what can I say?—a great human, in all respects.

I will try to be brief. I want to talk about some truths that I regard as being self-evident so will not need too much explanation. The first of those is that, for the last 20 years, Britain’s policy of intervention in the Middle East has resulted in failure and confusion. We seem to have forgotten the lessons of the last sensible and successful intervention that we carried out, which was the first Gulf War, which had clear objectives and was effectively achieved. Since then, we have had Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. I hope that this latest intervention the other day is an exception to that dismal record of missed opportunities. The Prime Minister set out a clear limited objective, which appears to have been effectively completed, and in that lies hope.

My second self-evident truth is that diplomacy is not the art of angels. In practice, it settles rather deeper down the celestial scale, if the right reverend Prelate will forgive me. Diplomacy is often a dirty business. It is not a choice of black and white or even a choice of greys. It is sometimes not a choice of doing good, but of finding the least harmful option. Sometimes, it requires us to dicker with the devil—even Assad.

Thirdly, foreign policy cannot succeed without a plan or a strategy and joined-up thinking based on real, long-term objectives—yes, Chilcot, as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, was expounding to us earlier. Intervention cannot be based on a cry of “Something must be done”. That is not a policy or plan and it comes nowhere near a strategy. All too often, such intervention has been based not on a clear view of our national interest but on distressing media coverage. All too often, it has made matters worse and—I really hate to say this—all too often it has the prime purpose of allowing politicians to sleep comfortably with their consciences, deaf to the sound of gunfire that they have left behind—in Iraq and Libya, for instance.

My fourth self-evident truth is that we must accept that there are some problems, no matter how distressing or harmful, that we simply cannot resolve, no matter how good our intentions or how humanitarian the cause. If we cannot resolve them, sometimes it is better not to get involved—yes, to stand back and accept that there will be an outcome that is distasteful and distressing. Sometimes, we simply cannot make things better. I do not think that we can make Syria better. At least, we have failed to so far, so perhaps we should stop trying to pick this or that ally and instead place more emphasis on humanitarian support—a policy that we do so well and so generously.

Fifthly and finally, the hard truth is that if Assad is part of the problem, he is also part of the solution. The Government’s policy of absolutely refusing to talk to him or his regime is not simply pointless but positively counterproductive. That refusal undermines any ability that we have to find some sort of common ground. Our claim that we are not interested in “regime change” in Syria must ring rather hollow there given our track record. Those were precisely the words used by Mr Blair before he got us into Iraq. I listened very carefully and agreed with so much of what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, said earlier on on this issue. If we do not intend to change the regime, we must talk to it. It is likely to be so much more productive than simply throwing bombs at it.

Like most Members of this House, I spoke out and opposed the bombing proposed in Syria in 2013. It seemed too opaque in its objectives and too much like gesture politics. This bombing in recent days is different. It has been limited, precise and appears to have been effective. It had a clear objective, which was to oppose the use of chemical weapons. There are times when we must act forcefully and bravely and accept that there are risks in these matters.

My individual views matter not a jot in these matters, but for what they are worth I support this bombing, so long as it is the start of developing a clear policy of intervention with objectives and limitations—a policy that has been so terribly lacking in the past. If noble Lords will allow me to rather murder the words of Winston Churchill, this strike is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But with courage, wisdom, patience, statesmanship and the sensible support of our partners, it might at least mark a new beginning for us in that terrible area of the Middle East.