United Nations Secretary-General: Selection

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

The noble Lord makes a very practical and important proposal. Although, of course, as just one member of the P5, we cannot force and insist on a change in the way that processes go forward, it is clear that from our point of view it would be a great advantage if we were given details by the candidates of how they intended to carry out their leadership skills and, as he indicates, how they would enable the United Nations in these difficult times to get beyond its 70th year, which it celebrates this year, and to go on for another 70. I find his suggestion very helpful indeed.

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

Will the British Government support and encourage whoever becomes the next Secretary-General to modernise the Security Council arrangements and deal with two disputes that have raged for far too long—50 years and more: namely, Cyprus, where too many people still hark back to the past rather than think about the future; and Israel-Palestine, where the United States has constantly allowed Israel to disobey international law via a succession of vetoes?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, with regard to United Nations Security Council reform, I was in New York just before the new year and met various actors at the United Nations. I made it clear that we support administrative and efficiency reforms but also reforms of the Security Council itself and its membership, and that in a changing world since the United Nations was founded 70 years ago, it is right that we should now look at membership for countries such as Brazil, Germany, India, Japan and, indeed, at African representation —although it would be for the African group to decide how it approached that. It is important that the United Nations Security Council as a whole works unanimously to resolve some of the most difficult and complex disagreements around the world.

Ukraine

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My noble friend is far more expert in matters of energy and oil prices, but we have all noticed the drop in the oil price to below $50 a barrel, which is having a severe effect on the Russian economy. However, certainly as far as Mr Putin is concerned, with regard to Ukraine there is a straightforward answer to achieving the relaxation of sanctions, which is to abide by the Minsk protocol and to remove his troops from a sovereign state.

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

Does my noble friend heed the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord West, earlier on in these exchanges about no excessive overreaction in the West, bearing in mind that Russia—not only Putin, but many people in Russia—feel very resentful about American triumphalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with overreaction, threats of new missiles and so on? The whole long litany of mistakes made by the West has caused Russia to find excuses for bad behaviour.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, given that Mr Putin invaded a sovereign state and has seized part of that sovereign state, where the humanitarian situation, in particular for Crimean Tatars, is deteriorating, our response has been moderate and proportionate.

European Union: Reform

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Dykes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress is being made in European Council discussions on reform of the European Union treaties.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK regularly discusses EU reform with counterparts both in the European Council and bilaterally. We have already made progress. The June European Council conclusions clearly set out a strong commitment to reforming the EU and it needs to address the UK’s concerns. We will continue to work with our European partners to achieve these reforms, many of which can be made right now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

I thank my noble friend for that Answer. In the mean time, can I tempt her to endorse the very wise advice of our new British Commissioner, Jonathan Hill, that everybody should calm down and avoid hysteria about the rather technical nature of the budget dues dispute, because our membership of the EU is surely the essential requirement and target, and is much more important than appeasing UKIP and other Europhobes?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the policy of this Government is to argue for the interests of this country. My noble friend is right to point to the very detailed nature of the investigation that must now take place of the demand, out of the blue, for an extra £1.7 billion. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has made clear that Her Majesty’s Treasury will now assess the data in exhaustive detail to check how the statistics were arrived at and the methodology that was used. After all, it is British taxpayers’ money and therefore it needs to be examined in detail and discussed properly by Finance Ministers. That will happen tomorrow.

Berlin Wall

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

Noble Lords may laugh, but I do not laugh at the Chancellor at all; I would not consider doing so. I understand that there is much agreement over some of the issues recently discussed. For example, in Germany at the moment the Bundestag itself is currently considering proposals to tighten access to benefits with regard to the free movement of workers across Europe, because Germany is considering whether to ban re-entry for migrants abusing welfare. Chancellor Merkel has clearly made the point that we must not have abuse of the system. She has joined us in calling for reform in the way that the EU works.

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as an officer of the British-German Association. I thank the Minister for those details of the commemoration and support that we are giving. Does she not agree, though, that the picture is larger? Germany as a democratic country has become an example to us all in Europe, after the war as well as after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and I am very glad to hear that the Government are sending messages. Does she agree that this example gives us a basis on which all countries in the EU should work peacefully together, because it is a model country?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I agree with what my noble friend says. Our bilateral relationship with Germany is a strong one. Since 2000 the number of ministerial and senior official visits has trebled and our trade links are strong. Trade can be the base of peace and prosperity in our relationships with other countries and he is right to propose that we should use our relationship with Germany as a model and an example of working well with other countries.

Middle East and North Africa

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

My Lords, they often say that in history if one avoids taking anecdotal experience and making it a generalisation, one is wise because it is dangerous to do so. There are many occasions when that it is true. But there are some occasions when the reverse is true.

I had the great honour and privilege of being one of the European Community official observers in the South African elections in 1994. I visited township polling stations—this was the first time that they had been set up. I went to posh polling stations in the white suburbs in Cape Town and Johannesburg. The clerk in charge of an important polling station in Weinberg, a wealthy Cape Town suburb that some colleagues in the House will know, was hard pressed because the other staff had not got there due to transport difficulties. The phone rang. He was dealing with people who were coming in to get their ballot papers. He asked me if I would answer the phone, and told me that there should be no politics; I should just give them the time of polling and the time that the station closed, and any other technical details.

A very grand, English-sounding voice in Weinberg said in rather a fierce way, “Young man, I do not know who you are, but I am coming down to vote in a general election today, as usual”. This woman had been told what she called a “very funny thing”: someone had told her that her maid could come down and vote as well. I replied, “Yes, madam—bring her down”. The woman asked: “What, in the same car?” I told her to bring her down in the same car if she was coming by car. She then asked: “Do you mean, through the same entrance?” I told her to come through the same entrance with the maid. She asked: “Are you sure?” I replied yes. I had been observing the scene, with voters coming in—black voters as well, registered to vote for the first time—and an hour and a quarter later this lady came in and thanked me for the advice. But she came in through the one entrance, arm-in-arm with her maid. The scales had fallen from her eyes. The anxiety, the fear of apartheid, had left her at that very moment. They went out good friends and they remained good friends afterwards, people who considered themselves equal for the first time—she was quite an elderly lady; it was a remarkable transformation—under the new law of a society that had been transformed by the intelligence, energy and long-range view of de Klerk, who was amazingly brave in that situation, coming together with the wonderful, heroic Nelson Mandela.

How do you achieve breakthroughism in the terrible continuing turmoil of Israel-Palestine, which is one of the main themes of today’s debate, because it is poisoning the atmosphere in both Israel and Palestine? I speak as a long-standing friend of Israel, ever since I first went there in 1970, with many years’ experience; with impeccable credentials, if I may add, as a person getting Soviet Jews out of the Soviet Union to make the Aliyah to Israel—some went to the United States instead; very unwisely, of course, but there it is—and helping them in other things as well. I dealt with the anniversary of the Kindertransport in Harrow, where we had a big commemoration with the Home Office Minister of State in those days, now the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, who is not here today. Such things are wonderful occasions of reminiscence and memorialising all the suffering of the Jewish people and the reason for the existence of the state of Israel.

However, at the same time, there are two states there, two countries—and I call Palestine a country already; its recognition is long overdue. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, for her comments on this matter, and embarrass her by praising her immense courage in leaving the Government because of the dreadful events in Gaza and the killing of large numbers of civilians, including many, many children. Break- throughism is possible if the people in those two great countries—Palestine smaller than Israel, of course, physically and in population—have the courage to seize the moment and come together in a dynamic future.

The main move has to come from the established state—the state of Israel—because that is more powerful than the weak, ailing semi-state of Palestine, struggling to become a state as soon as possible, with still a lower population if you take out Gaza for the moment. That can be done. I believe sincerely that it will be done. Israel is a wonderful country with a wonderful people but it has a lousy Government. This is the tragedy of the moment. They are not so much a lousy Government on internal matters—although there are some people in Israel on low incomes who complain about the economic situation there as well; so that shows it is a normal country—but the leaders and the foreign policy, in the need to seek reconciliation and friendship with the Palestinians, do not make the necessary moves.

Israel’s leaders must remove the poison of the settlements. I am very glad that the pro-Israeli speakers in this debate—the noble Lords, Lord Mitchell, Lord Turnberg and Lord Leigh, who is not here now—have referred to that as well. That must be dealt with; otherwise, there will be no movement. Israel is quite rightly an unbeatable state militarily. It has to be to protect its own citizens. But once you are the unbeatable military state, you have the strength to negotiate with the weaker partner and offer concessions. That is the solemn truth facing the Israeli leaders. Are they capable of facing up to it? Will they reach for the challenge as de Klerk and Mandela did in South Africa?

There should not be another comparison between South Africa and Israel-Palestine but there is, and this is my final comment. The Israeli settlement policy started by Sharon as Housing Minister, was a fatal, big mistake and lots of Israelis are upset about it and say so in Haaretz and B’Tselem and all those other very virtuous groups and newspapers in Israel that speak the truth about that country and its future survival and existence. Together they must now reach for the first step to accommodate the Palestinians by saying that the settlements will be removed, or, if some stay, they will be negotiated in free negotiations between the two. The Palestinians cannot respond as the weaker partner unless Israeli leaders do that. I do not think Mr Lieberman is capable of it; I am not sure about Netanyahu. I have my severe doubts. I do not think he is really, but there are others in that coalition grouping in Israel who are capable of these things. It is increasingly what the Israeli people know in their heart of hearts.

In an article I wrote six months ago for the English language quarterly newspaper in Berlin, the Jewish Voice From Germany, I paid tribute to the unique, magisterial contribution of the Jewish community to the welfare and the social, economic and financial development of this country. It is a very small community—only 300,000-plus people now, much smaller than our Muslim population coming from all different countries—but because it did that, it is revered and respected and so will the Israeli Government leaders be revered and respected if they come together with the Palestinians. It can be done, and once they do shake hands and become friends, the two dynamic territories working together to create a near east common market, that transformation will be much quicker than anybody here can imagine.

Iran: Nuclear Programme

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the noble Lord has a deep understanding of the issue. Certainly, we know that that the progress that has been made so far has been positive and, it is true to say, delicate. We do not wish to predict that a failure to achieve a resolution on 24 November would lead to a complete breakdown. We do not think that that would be the case. We are still hopeful of an agreement by then. After all, the negotiations are being led by the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, and we know that we have confidence in her.

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

Meanwhile, what steps will my noble friend take to persuade her government colleagues and other leaders in the Middle East to restore the balance by insisting that Israel should now consider seriously reducing its nuclear arsenal and also subscribing to the non-proliferation treaty?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, although security in the region is a part of this question, any negotiations with Israel would at the moment not be on an effective basis, because clearly we have not yet resolved the matter of Iran’s position.

EU: Reform

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Dykes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made so far in their negotiations regarding reform of the European Union.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)]

My Lords, we have made real progress, cutting the EU budget, ending the UK’s bailout obligations, cutting red tape through the Business Taskforce recommendations, agreeing three major trade agreements and launching talks with the United States. Support is growing. In June, the European Council recognised that the concept of ever closer union allows for different paths of integration and Commission President-designate Juncker agreed that reform is needed, including a strengthened role for national parliaments.

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

My Lords, on this, her first day answering Questions on foreign affairs from the Dispatch Box, may I wish my noble friend well in that role in the future and with these negotiations? We have been encouraged recently by the enormous number of member states that are now signed up to a much greater role for national parliaments in the EU’s policy formation, and by Jonathan Hill’s truly moving and very warm and strong words in the European Parliament confirmation hearing about the importance of Britain remaining in the European family of nations. Will my noble friend then urge all coalition colleagues now to concentrate on explaining the huge merits of our membership of the EU rather than being distracted by the dark forces that appear all too often in the British tabloid newspapers?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I am sure that this House knows nothing of dark forces. It is full of light and enlightenment on this matter, although we may occasionally come to different conclusions. I thank my noble friend for his kind words of welcome. It is certainly a fascinating brief and I know that there are many Members of this House with the greatest expertise in it.

We agree that strengthening the role of national parliaments is a key way of addressing the EU’s democratic deficit. So, of course, we are looking at reform; we have said—the Prime Minister has said very carefully and clearly—that it is important that we remain part of the European Union, but part of a reformed European Union. The work that we have been doing has shown our determination to achieve the right result for both the UK and the rest of the European Union. My noble friend refers to the benefits. We know that at least 3.5 million jobs in the UK depend on trade with the EU. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has already spent the summer visiting other European capitals. He has had a good reception and knows that they are working towards developing our negotiations with Europe.

Gaza

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

The Government have said on a number of occasions that it is of course in the interests of the Palestinians and, indeed, the Israelis for this matter to be resolved. As long as the underlying issues are not resolved, then neither people in neither country can be safe.

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

My Lords, will HMG work really hard from now on to ensure that the United States stops automatically vetoing UN Security Council resolutions which bring peace in the Middle East? This allows Israel to disobey international law, as was also said by the noble Lord, Lord Deben. This is absolutely essential, because there have been nearly 40 vetoes since 1968, allowing Israel just to flout international law. I speak as a long-standing admirer of the country of Israel, but not of the present Government’s policies.

European Commission: UK Member

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Dykes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they expect to announce the name of the next United Kingdom member of the European Commission.

[The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)]

My Lords, as set out in the treaties, Commission portfolios will be allocated by the Commission President Designate to those nominated by member states and agreed by common accord in the Council. We expect the European Parliament to confirm Mr Juncker’s appointment as President Designate on 15 July. The Commission as a whole will then be confirmed by the European Parliament in the autumn.

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

With the wise reminder last week of the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, should not HMG deliberately and carefully make sure that they choose an ideal candidate on this occasion, because of the urgent matters in hand for the European Commissioner? The candidate should be an articulate, international, sagacious, knowledgeable person—maybe female again, like her predecessor—someone who actually likes the European Union and working with people and who likes foreigners and speaks foreign languages. As that would of course narrow down the field if it is a Conservative nominee, what about a Liberal Democrat one? We are the only party that stood up for Europe at the last election.

[Baroness Warsi]

Possibly even from Yorkshire, my Lords. As to the serious part of my noble friend’s question, we need to make sure that our Commissioner candidate understands the changing role of the European Union, the need for reform and the fact that the Commissioner has to act in a way that benefits member states and the European Union as a whole. I can assure my noble friend, and indeed the House, that the Prime Minister has a line-up of very strong candidates.

Middle East: Jihadism

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Dykes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the threat from the spread of militant aggressive jihadism in the Middle East.

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful that I succeeded in getting this debate—a brief debate on a very deep and important subject, particularly at this very moment. I am most grateful to all those participating in it, particularly my noble friend for coming here. I embarrass her deliberately by saying that she is an incredibly hard-working Minister with far too many tasks, and I am grateful that she is fitting this one in as well. I am equally grateful to the Leader of the Opposition for attending and herself responding to this debate.

Just over a week ago, in a searing moment of immensely chilling import, the West as a whole realised yet again just how futile and tragic had been the originally illegal US-UK invasion of Iraq 11 years ago. Although it had to be later certificated ex post by a hog-tied and embarrassed United Nations, the invasion had left a broken country with many thousands of innocent civilians killed. The Daily Mirror yesterday, referring to Tony Blair, estimated the total now to be 650,000 since the invasion. It left a judicially murdered dictator, a demolished professional army and a deliberately wrecked civil service infrastructure. Never before, even including the humiliating defeat of the US in Vietnam, had the United States looked so incompetent in its government and military structures.

I remember with some pride that we as an entire political party marched officially with a million and a half people down Piccadilly to try to stop that wretched invasion. Blair ignored those passionate entreaties, and has for ever lost his reputation as a formerly very effective and distinguished national leader.

We must all have enormous sympathy now for the efforts of President Obama to deal with this subject. Of course, the publication of the Chilcot report later this year will throw what I guess will be an ominous light on the crafty dealings between President Bush and Prime Minister Blair on why they went to war: the US spluttering indignantly about the threat of a French veto—the first ever major one, if they were to exercise it—against the background of more than 30 American vetoes since 1968, allowing increasingly extreme Israeli Governments of growing right-wing tendency to flout international law at will in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Indeed, we are all now led to believe that there has been meddling at the highest level between Washington and London to stop enormous amounts of revelations about the Bush-Blair conversations in the Chilcot report text. I ask myself whether they would also reveal details of collusion between other countries in the Middle East—Saudi Arabia perhaps; I do not know—as occurred in the Suez debacle, when the US, with a virtuous President, stopped Britain and France from geopolitical insanity.

More recently, we were able to witness common sense at last in resisting the strident calls for western military intervention in Syria—less wisdom, of course, in handling Libya, where another dictator ended up murdered without even a show trial, and the usual complete paralysis now over what is happening in Egypt. Meanwhile, the sinister expansion of militant jihadism has been fuelled not least by the geopolitical blunders of the western powers, who have all too often found it impossible not to interfere in the wrong way in other people’s countries, relentlessly telling them what to do as if our democracies were both perfect and powerful.

The latest situation in Iraq is terrifying. I hope that there is no worse news on the military side today; I have not had a chance to see the morning news yet. Least of all can the West ever intervene successfully in what is a medieval struggle between militant and vicious Sunni and Shia factions, whose mindsets are literally unfathomable to occidental minds. Only a part of this imbroglio can be blamed on the USA and its unusually obsequious acolytes, of which the UK is usually one, sadly. The Americans themselves perceive, as we all do, how starkly the isolation of Iran for many reckless reasons was such an enormous blunder by the West. It must have had endless well intentioned senior State Department officials weeping with frustration. Once again, we need to thank President Obama warmly for his valiant efforts to achieve a settlement, aided by a moderate Iranian head of government.

If the geopolitical wreckage is huge, the solutions are very difficult to perceive. Just how does the West help the sea of moderate, peaceful citizens in these hapless and tragic Arabian countries who surely want democracy to arrive to help them but are not experienced in bringing it about, particularly as our record of intervention has been so negative for them? Above all, I am sure, we grieve for the fate of women and children in these tragedies. Only little Tunisia, a small country, seems to be progressing as a good example, if the good will is there.

I agree with David Aaronovitch, who wrote in the Times last Thursday about the “brave journalists” covering these conflict areas and that,

“it is practically impossible to get a good idea of what goes on in areas ‘controlled’ by groups such as Isis”.

In the mean time, the growth of militant jihadism of both Sunni and Shia varieties is spreading not only in the full conflict zones such as Syria and now, alas, Iraq. It is gaining ground in the Muslim areas of west Africa, perhaps slightly more slowly in the Maghreb countries, and of course among Muslim communities in western and some Asian countries, as well, of course, as in Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan.

Above all, it remains to be seen how this will play out in Afghanistan, where western intervention was at its most supine and foolish. I am glad that British forces are now leaving at long last. The USA was obsessed with the equally unwise invasion by the Soviet Union of that complex country and worked with the previous generation of Taliban to drive the Russians out—ironically ending, at the same time, the best civil society that women with jobs and children in schools had ever enjoyed in that sad country. In the infamous film “Charlie Wilson’s War”, those in Hollywood conveniently failed to mention the Taliban at all, yet their country is now fighting the Taliban.

President Obama has at last espoused non-direct intervention, although even in his second term he has to wrap up the rhetoric in case the wrong people in Washington and elsewhere seek to undermine and make mischief. I fervently pray that this will be the permanent American doctrine from now on, replacing Theodore Rooseveltian imperialism with modern international self-restraint and a devotion to the genuine wishes of the whole UN, not just to partial and limited lobbies nagging the Security Council endlessly. We must for ever remember the startlingly sagacious warning of President Eisenhower in his valedictory: “Beware the inexorable rise of the military-industrial complex”. His advice was totally ignored for reasons of oil, money, imperialism and the helping of the rise of the aggressive form of Zionism which is letting down the marvellous country of Israel itself.

No longer can we therefore leave all this chaos in the febrile hands of one country, let alone the USA. A major problem right now is handling the Iraqi PM, Mr al-Maliki, who has apparently been far too fierce as a partisan and authoritarian Shia leader. He is deeply unpopular as well with many Iraqis who are not very political, such as the Sunni minority and a lot of people in the Kurdish entity. Some locals think that human rights are more abused nowadays than they were by Saddam Hussein. Incidentally, on the only visit that I have paid to Iraq, in 1988, he was then the chief friend of the USA—so much so that we recall that the Americans publicly declared that the Halabja killings had been done by the Iranian regime since Iran was then the devil, as it was later. Saddam himself was a client of the US and the UK. Who in the Middle East and elsewhere, I wonder, persuaded them to change their minds about this person?

All this confusion and cynical manoeuvring leaves the broad public of the western countries in a state of total bewilderment. Having accepted with some reluctance the need to fight al-Qaeda after 9/11, the outrage in America which gave us all enormous sympathy for the United States, they now see other groups with strange names springing up both in the ghastly Syrian civil war and elsewhere. The trouble is that we all rush to denounce them as terrorists—for those who wish to offend, there is an even worse description—but we never bother to ask what they want of their own countries and of the West. I do not recall a single TV or radio programme where a senior Taliban person has been allowed to air their views on the western media. We know that the Taliban, all too brutally, discourages women from having human rights and equality, but is this hyperbole from the western media as well? Is there any rationale to it? Why do we not know? We are ignorant of the facts. We urgently need to secure further guidance and information from Turkey in this multifaceted contextual struggle. I take no pleasure in echoing the conclusion of many western observers that somehow the errors and blunders of the West have spurred on the spread of the jihadi impetus. That conclusion seems unfair to a well intentioned western society, but we need to probe its depths.

However, we can start with some initiatives. For a start, the UN, especially its Security Council, can no longer be the plaything of the leading powers in the old historical context. I want to say something at the risk of offending other people who, like myself, are long-standing friends of Israel: I have been a friend of Israel ever since I went there in 1970 and it is a fabulous country with a wonderful people, but they are increasingly badly let down on foreign policy and policies towards Palestine by an increasingly extreme, right-wing Government, sadly doing the wrong things and making the wrong decisions. I say that even now, after the tragic kidnapping of the three young Israeli seminary students; I hope that they will be released as soon as possible, but the way to deal with that is not the way in which the Israeli Government are doing it.

The Palestinians must have their place in the sun and we should respect, not denounce, their common Government of technocrats and Hamas. The quartet has been hopeless in this sense for many years; it has simply betrayed the Palestinians, whose elections have been postponed for far too long by President Abbas. After all, Palestine cannot be the only country in the world literally without its own Government and elections. The UN has to respond if this tragic situation continues.

We also need to accept that the eventual outcome in Syria will be the Syrians’ decision, not ours, and that President Assad is as legitimate, unfortunately, as most leaders in Arabia. The US seems never to criticise Saudi Arabia despite appalling human rights abuses there, especially those visited on women. I hope fervently that the UN will act to halt the mass executions now threatened by the courts in Egypt. Has the US said anything about this?

New elections must now surely be held in Iraq to seek to secure a moderate sectarian outcome, which will need to be supervised by the UN in what is still a broken country. I hope too that the European Union will try to play a greater role in helping Arabia out of its agonies, first of all having apologised for being so hopeless in the quartet set-up, as the EU can now earn more respect in the area than, sadly, the US does—despite Obama’s heroic efforts, for which we should wish him well.