Middle East

Debate between Lord Lilley and Madeleine Moon

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) on securing the debate, and on his very thoughtful introduction to it.

I share the outrage that has been aroused by the atrocities in Paris, Tunisia, Beirut, Sinai and elsewhere. Any action that is necessary to protect Britain from similar horrors will have my full support, especially if we can simultaneously deliver fellow Christians and other minorities from the barbarity of the ISIL regime. However, I still need to be persuaded that the Government’s policy is likely to be effective and realistic, although I want to be persuaded. Let me spell out my concerns and doubts.

Above all, we must learn the lessons of experience from Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, all of which continue to haunt us. Albert Einstein said that the definition of insanity was to keep on doing the same thing and expect a different outcome. My colleagues are eminently sane, so I hope that they have learnt what I believe to be the three key lessons of recent history. First, it is comparatively easy to destroy a regime. Secondly, it is next to impossible to install a new regime or defeat an insurgency by air power alone, without boots on the ground: troops who are prepared to stay for the long term, preferably because they are in their own country. Thirdly, the only thing worse than a tyrannical regime is the chaos and anarchy that may replace it.

I need persuading first that if we join the bombing campaign, it will be in support of forces that are capable of retaining ground that air power may help to clear. In Iraq, we are supporting the Iraqi and Kurdish forces, and if it is militarily necessary to take action across border in their defence, that is fine by me. However, I must say this about Syria. The Prime Minister referred to

“70,000 Syrian opposition fighters, principally of the Free Syrian Army, who do not belong to extremist groups”.—[Official Report, 26 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1491.]

[Mrs Moon]

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when the Select Committee was in Iraq, we were told that 1 million Shia fighters alone were willing to combat Daesh. Do we not have a greater chance in Iraq than in Syria?

[Mr Lilley]

The hon. Lady has made a very good point, and she made an extremely good speech.

I would like to believe that the Free Syrian Army is more than a label attached to a ragbag of tribal troops, factional militias and personal armies with no coherent command structure. I would like to believe that they are moderates. However, when I was carrying out a study of the conflict in Ulster many years ago, I examined similar situations, and concluded that

“it is nearly a law of human nature that where people fear the disintegration of the state they rally to the most forceful and extreme advocate of their group.”

In those circumstances there are no moderates, so at best we will have to rely on some pretty violent and unpleasant forces.

I would like to believe that there will be an effective fighting force. However, in October, the commander of the US central command, General Lloyd Austin, reported to the Senate that the programme to train some 5,400 moderate Syrians each year at a cost of $500 million had so far produced only four or five fighters. The number could be counted on the fingers of one hand. I would also like to be convinced that, if those moderate fighting forces existed, they could be persuaded to fight the Islamists rather than Assad, whom they have mostly considered to be their main enemy up to now.