Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Lord Winston Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, I always seem to find myself in tandem with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. It is a delight to follow him. The House is very grateful to the Leader for introducing this important debate and putting on record what in general we feel in the House of Lords. It reflects extraordinarily well on the House.

I will make five brief points. The first is on the question of trust. Some 10 years ago I gave a speech on the proposed invasion of Iraq. I remember saying in that debate, in one of my many very poor speeches in this House, that while I was against the invasion of Iraq, we had to trust our leaders, who had information that we did not have. I now feel in complete disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, who argued that we have to trust our leaders. The value of this House is that we are independent and that we do not entirely trust our leaders. Part of the reason we are here is to offer an alternative, non-political view. The value of that has been shown greatly today.

Secondly, it is very important that we see leadership. That was shown extraordinarily well by two speeches. One was from the noble Lord, Lord Wright, who started the debate. The other was from the noble Lord, Lord Hurd. Both noble Lords showed the experience of age. I am afraid that one issue that can be clearly seen is that in general the leadership of all parties is pretty inexperienced. This is an issue that we face, and why the House of Lords in its present state is so valuable.

I will also address the issue of certainty. It is very difficult to deal with uncertainty, but one thing that we must do in a mature world is just that. What worried me very much about the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, was his certainty that by going for military action we would do something, while the experience of our military leaders who spoke in this debate—my noble friend Lord West and the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt—clearly showed that we will have to live with uncertainty and balance it in a much better way.

The next issue is that of humanitarian concern. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said everything that I wanted to say but much more eloquently. He pointed to the humanitarian issue. If we really want to be of any account and to be humanitarian, rather than lob shells into Syria, why should we not open our borders to refugees and help the other countries that they are going into? That is very unlikely to happen, but it shows the curious situation that we are in.

The last question is that of psychology. Do we really consider that by lobbing shells into Syria we will soften Assad’s heart? It is worth looking to the Book of Genesis and the question of Pharaoh. Again and again, he is threatened with attack. Finally he suffers the most targeted strike of all, which is the killing of the first-born, who are particularly targeted as Egyptians. It does nothing but affect Pharaoh’s pride, which is what would happen with Assad as well: it would be the same sort of thing. Haaretz newspaper, which is part of a free press in Israel that is reporting very fairly on the situation, yesterday argued very clearly that it is not only Assad who commits atrocities; the other side are quite capable of doing so as well. It pointed out that if we start lobbing shells into the situation, we may cause not merely a mess but a quagmire. That is what it said in its reporting yesterday.

It said one other thing, which I thought was rather pertinent. It argued, for example, that the issue to some extent is that we have the perception—it has been said in this debate, somewhat unfortunately—that somehow Israel is responsible for this situation in some way. The problem, rather opposing what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, said, is that Israel sees itself surrounded by Syrias. It is surrounded by nations that are not likely to take democratic action in the way that we would expect. It is inevitable, therefore, that it hardens its heart and appears to be a great deal more intransigent. We have to be extremely careful how we handle the whole issue of the Middle East.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is a civil war in Syria. So far, 100,000 people have been killed and 2 million people are refugees outside Syria. The society and economy of Syria are in the process of being destroyed, which requires the international community to try to resolve the situation.

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. The whole House has great respect for him but I feel that he has rather missed the mood of the Chamber today. He says that 100,000 people have been killed already. Can he give us the Government’s estimate of how many more people might be killed if we engage in a strike against Syria?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, if we are engaged in a strike on Syria it will be limited and very deliberately targeted, and not intended to cause any significant number of casualties. We are attempting to deter further chemical attacks. We are also attempting to defend the principle of international law. Let me say to those who say that it does not matter how you are killed, by whatever weapons, there are differences. The international community and international law have outlawed weapons of mass destruction. Chemical weapons have been illegal internationally since 1925. That is a red line and if we do not support the principle that using chemical weapons either against your own people or against members of another state is different, we are simply allowing that major principle of international law to decay. That is the principle with which we are engaged. At the same time, we and others, including the Arab League, the World Muslim Council, the European Union, and many others are working to try to resolve the situation and the conflict in Syria.

I was amazed to hear from a number of people the question: why do we not pay more attention to the diplomatic channel? Why has the Geneva II conference not yet taken place? We had hoped that the second Geneva conference would take place this July, and the Russians did their best to delay it. We hoped then that it would take place in September; we now hope that it may take place in November. The level of diplomatic activity in which Her Majesty’s Government have been engaged in the past few months has been enormous. I was in the Foreign Office yesterday reading transcripts of conversations with heads of government, foreign secretaries and others from 20 or more different Governments, ranging from Japan, to Russia, to Australia and to the United Arab Emirates. We are actively working on the diplomatic track. Unfortunately, we have not found much support from our colleagues in Russia or very much support from the Chinese, although the Chinese Government have condemned officially the use of chemical weapons. The diplomatic track is our preferred option, and we are working on it. The use of force is a last resort to be used only if other methods break down.