Middle East

Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Grade, for his initiative in securing this debate. Although he was keen to focus on the media and academic interpretation of the Middle East—or, more specifically on the Israel-Palestine conflict—I would like to focus on what the FCO could do to improve its understanding of the wider Middle East. However, I concur that we need to ensure an open debate in our academic institutions, while underlining Labour’s commitment to a two-state solution.

First, we must acknowledge that, on the whole, we are not doing very well in relation to our understanding and intervention in the Middle East, as underlined by the noble Lord, Lord Empey. I agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester that an understanding of religion is central to moving on here. However, we should note, for example, that not a single diplomat recorded on paper their opposition to the Iraq war. Politicians do need to take some advice from the experts. We got Iraq wrong; we made a mess of Libya; Afghanistan is still in trouble; at one point we were determined to see the removal of Assad from Syria but now it is not so clear. We need to have an honest debate about what is going wrong.

The Environment Minister, Rory Stewart, who previously served as an FCO civil servant in the region, has suggested that the entire structure of the Foreign Office—the incentives, the method of promotion, the recruitment—does not help us to ever acknowledge failure, as is the case with our intervention in the Middle East. He went further and suggested that these institutions are designed to trap us in these countries. Does the Minister agree with that analysis? We need to develop in-depth linguistic and cultural expertise. Can the Minister confirm whether more than three out of 16 Middle East ambassadors can speak Arabic, as was the case just a few years ago? Our diplomats need to spend longer in the region and they need to get out and about, but the safety rules with which FCO officials must comply are so stringent that the chances of gaining on-the-ground intelligence reports are extremely limited. Does the Minister have any ideas on how we can marry safety rules with intelligence gathering?

Finally, we must ask who is leading in the Middle East. Is it the FCO or the military? Do we have the balance right? To take an example, the fact is that we spent 13 times more on bombing Libya than we did on rebuilding the country after the conflict. We cannot disengage from the Middle East but we can make better and more informed decisions about what intervention looks like. It does not always have to be militarily led, our diplomats need better training and understanding, and they need to acknowledge when they are wrong—along, of course, with us, the politicians.