Iraq: Coalition Against ISIL

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. I will play my part—as I am sure will he and other Members across the House—in setting out the case and explaining the basis of action, which is to protect innocent Muslims in Iraq who are under terrible threat from ISIL day after day. That is why there is such urgency in this case.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The Prime Minister argued that this was a generational struggle, but only last year in this House, he passionately argued for action in Syria. Had he got his way then, what would the position of ISIL be today? Would ISIL not be stronger? If the consequences were unforeseen over the space of a year, does that not show that our commitment should not be open-ended, but should be back to be scrutinised by this House?

[Edward Miliband]

As we are, on this occasion, seeking the unity of the House, it is incredibly important that we do everything we can to make that happen. The proposition last year was about chemical weapons in relation to President Assad. That matter was dealt with by others. Of course, the situation in Syria remains very dire. I believe that we made the right decision last summer, but today is about trying to get the whole House supporting the motion before it.

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[Mr Dai Havard (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

There is little time, so I will try to deal with just some of the issues. Clearly, we have needs, opportunities and tasks to complete. As I understand it, the plan, which has not been explained terribly well, is that we should just be part of a process to try to find, fix and then, as the Americans would describe it, finish the opposition. Our contribution to the process at the moment is, at best, to help to fix the enemy in the position it is in—and not allow it to advance and do any more harm—and perhaps to do more than that if we can. That is part of a campaign. In many respects, the language is over-ambitious; it always is. It is about wars on terror and eliminating and destroying. That needs to be better calibrated but, as I understand it, our part is in what possibly is not yet a fully formed strategy; it is a developing campaign. We need to make whatever contribution we can to a long-term process. As a number of hon. Members have said, that involves diplomatic activity as much as military activity. We need to do a lot more on that. We also need to do a lot more on the financial activity and the ideology that is peddled. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) made an important point, to which I will return. We need to invest in those processes; we have been disinvesting in them. Therefore, we have opportunities.

We need to understand that others have made progress. It is interesting to see a woman jet pilot from the UAE flying an F-16 in combat. Other nations are making progress. One should not deny the success that is being achieved. That does not solve everything but it shows that a different discussion is going on in the region.

Three years ago, in conjunction with the Royal United Services Institute, I set up a defence and diplomacy group in Parliament because it was clear that the strategic focus had moved and we were behind the game. Therefore, we must not make that mistake. There is an opportunity, no more than that, that we must develop and work on.

Some rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia may be possible. Diplomacy is a dirty business; it always is. Sometimes one has to speak to people one does not want to speak to in order to make progress. I did that for 25 years as a trade union official—get over it and get on with it is the answer. One must make progress and recognise success when one sees it.

There are those tasks but we must invest in the ability to do them. We must not only create space by fixing the enemy but enable the countries in the region to be helped to do things for themselves; we must do things for ourselves, too. We have dramatically disinvested. We do not have Jones the spy where we need to have Jones the spy because we have not been paying the money to have intelligence on the ground to understand the position. We have disinvested in our intelligence, at home and internationally. We need to understand that this is a long-term process, and that in doing all these things we need to make a long-term investment.

[Mr MacNeil]

Is the hon. Gentleman in any way perturbed by the open-ended nature of this motion?

[Mr Havard]

It is a reality; I am perturbed by it, but I also recognise the fact that it is the realpolitik. There is no way that we will make this change in the short term, and neither will we make it in a Twitter debate of 140 characters. As I have said to you, Mr Speaker, on a number of occasions, we used to have defence debates in this Parliament on a regular basis—a full day of discussion—and we need to reinstate them. This will be a long-term process, and this debate will not be the only discussion about it; we will be discussing this matter for the next 15 years and we need the structure to do that.

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[Mr McFadden]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is worth stressing that the United States Administration’s policy for the past five or six years has been absolutely to resist intervention, but we still have violent Islamic jihadism and ISIS.

[Mr MacNeil]

I just want to query the hon. Gentleman’s history. What is the connection between the twin towers attack and Iraq?

[Mr McFadden]

The point I am making is that violent Islamic jihadism was around long before the decision in 2003.

Beneath the argument that this is really our fault lies a new imperialism—an imperialist conceit that, in foreign policy terms, seeks to divide the world into adults and children. The United States, the United Kingdom and other countries are defined as adults, and movements elsewhere, including the jihadists, are defined almost as children who react only in response to what we do or do not do. That is not the case: they are responsible for their own actions and their own ideology.

No one has forced anyone to behead innocent journalists and aid workers on the internet. No one has forced anyone to go from this country to join a group that carries out such acts. No one has forced anyone to carry out the terrorist acts that we have seen on our own streets. We cannot say this loudly and clearly enough: those who carry out these actions and foment this ideology are adults who are responsible for their own actions.

That brings me to the motion, which sets out a plan for military action in Iraq. I will vote for it, but I have to ask, as other hon. Members have asked, why it is right to carry out such actions against ISIS in Iraq, but not in Syria. The Government have welcomed the action carried out by the United States and Arab countries in Syria in recent days. If it is welcome and right for others to do so, why is it not welcome and right for us? If the Government’s position is that it would be illegal or wrong to act in that way in Syria, why is it not illegal or wrong for the United States and the countries taking part in the action? Militarily, we must ask what the point is of chasing ISIS from Iraq through a barely existing border to Syria. Morally, we must ask why it is right to come to the aid of the victims of ISIS who live under a democracy in Iraq, but not those who live under a dictatorship in Syria.

Is not the motion a reflection of where the country stands right now—somewhat limited in its confidence, overburdened by past events, and looking too much in the rear-view mirror? I would say that “Out, damn’d spot” is no basis for taking crucial foreign policy decisions. Instead, we should learn from the past, ally our soft power with hard power, follow through on our decisions to intervene so that we achieve our objectives, and not just define the struggle as a generational one and begin military action, but actually will the means to complete the job.

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[Sir Alan Duncan]

My whole point is that we have to live with that uncertainty, because we are living in an age that lacks the clarity of the past, but that does not mean that we do nothing. We will be acting in a region the turmoil and disruption of which are more difficult to comprehend than anything we have ever seen, and that means—and this is exactly my answer to my right hon. Friend—that the path ahead is far from obvious. Personally, I have been in favour of the UK taking action only if it is part of a co-ordinated international effort. We now have that, and it is reassuring to be alongside Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and of course the United States and France. Again I say that none of this will be straightforward. Wisdom is not weakness, particularly in the middle east. In the complicated melee of today’s middle east, we would be wise to appreciate that we are confronting a new threat in a new way, and therefore we should calibrate our expectations accordingly.

In passing, I must say that I am a little uncomfortable with the language of some people—essentially outside this House—who seem to see this decision as a test of the United Kingdom’s virility. That is no way to look at this issue, and it harks back to an age and a mentality that simply do not suit the world of today. The country needs to know why we are doing this. The justification for our involvement is best expressed in terms of what it will do to improve Iraq, its people and the region itself and less well expressed by saying that it is mainly because terrorists directly threaten us here in the UK. That threat exists anyway, and it will not be eliminated even if ISIL is forced into submission.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) said, we must also be realistic about how little we really know. The rise of ISIL has taken us all by surprise, and knowing in detail and with confidence who they are and what exactly is happening on the ground will not be easy. Our well of understanding about the region has run rather dry. If I might say so, this House would do better not to be so quick to mock the hon. Member for Bradford West (George Galloway).

[Mr MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a good speech. Is he uneasy about the way in which the gates are being opened in this motion? The motion could open up the possibility of the UK bombing in Iraq for up to the next 10 years, because it is open-ended.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Let me answer the hon. Gentleman this way, because it really is my main point. We are looking at not one country invading another or a national army marching across the border, but a conflict without borders and the advance of non-state actors who have no national identity, no seat in the UN and no coherent political structure. The threat is not from a rogue state or a vicious dictator, but from a poisonous, viral movement that is cutting a swathe of grisly barbarity across the region from Syria to Iraq. That enemy can morph into al-Qaeda one day, disappear into the crowd and come back again the next. We can resolve to beat it, but it is not the same as fighting a country.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) sensibly asked, what can we target? What can we hit? How can we be sure that we are bombing in the right way? Can we perhaps disable infrastructure rather than destroy it, and how will we continue to be effective from the air should ISIL forces move into a dense urban settlement? For all those reasons, we must expect to give our Prime Minister flexibility and discretion, without us descending into political recriminations. He must be allowed to adapt and amend our actions to suit the unfolding acts on the ground and in my opinion—this is a view that has been expressed by my right hon. Friends the Members for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway), and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member and for North Somerset (Dr Fox) for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke),—that should not exclude spreading air attacks into the deserts of Syria.

In conclusion, taking on ISIL is not just about bombs. It requires comprehensive confrontation—diplomatic, social, religious, cultural, educational and financial and through the media and the use of intelligence—and ISIL must be beaten on all fronts. This may go on for years; it might not. Today, we should be prepared to start our action, but, equally, should it ever become too impractical or inappropriate to fight from the air, then we should also, without shame, stain or blame, be prepared to stop it.