Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I am glad to be following the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, because I have great respect for the integrity that he showed at a difficult time during the Iraq war.

It is worth saying first of all, and saying strongly, that one of the issues that overlays the whole of this debate is the credibility of any action that we might take. It is, if you like, the aftermath of the Iraq war that so many of our fellow citizens and many in this House and outside it find it very hard to accept any longer even what appear to be the most powerful convictions of Governments in trying to conclude what the facts are. Therefore, I am glad that both the Government’s own Motion and the Labour Party’s amendment to it stress the absolute necessity of as much evidence as we can possibly get before we make a final decision. One of the difficulties, therefore, is that we are looking at a public who lack acceptance of the positions being put to them, and that means that it is crucial that we work on the basis of the maximum evidence that we can possibly get in the next few days. I hope that the United Nations recognises the importance of moving as quickly as it reasonably can in the circumstances.

The second thing that I want to say, and it has not been much touched on so far in this debate, is how vital it is to retain the interest and, so far as is possible, support of the Arab and Muslim powers in the world for whatever action we take with regard to what has already happened. It is crucial that Arab League, in the shape of its Secretary-General, Mr Elaraby—a distinguished Egyptian who has been in that role for some years now—has come out and said that it believes that it is right and proper to take action on the use of chemical weapons against the people of Syria. It is important that it takes that view.

I shall come a little later to the fact that the underlying clash in the Middle East is, sadly, one between Sunni and Shia and that therefore we need to think very hard about the crucial question posed by the noble Lord, Lord West, as to what else we can do. We need to take into account more than we have done the Shia and not just the Sunni powers, and it is of course the Arab League that largely represents the Sunni powers.

Thirdly, we are looking not at a single challenge but at two, and we cannot totally divorce one from the other. There is the military challenge, but associated with it—indestructibly so—is the humanitarian challenge to which the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, and others have referred. That humanitarian challenge is almost beyond our control now. As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, pointed out, there are already nearly 2 million refugees outside Syria who are beginning to cast almost immeasurable pressures not only on the states immediately around such as Turkey, Jordan and, tragically, Lebanon but extending increasingly far beyond that; for example, even to the great inflow into Iraq of refugees from the Syrian campaign and civil war. What does that mean? It means, to choose again the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord West, that we have to associate what we do about that continuing crisis with what we do about the short-term one. That in turn requires the maximum support of the Arab world to assist us because we have to resettle all these refugees if Syria is to have a serious future.

That brings me to the final point I want to make. I regard it as little short of a tragedy that this country has no representation in Tehran, the single greatest Shia power in the region. It is quite clear that we have missed an opportunity because we did not accept the invitation extended to us—not an easy one to accept—to be part of the inauguration of the new president. I shall say two things about that. The House ought to know—I am sure there are individuals who do know—that Iran has consistently been totally opposed to the use of chemical weapons. It has taken that position in one United Nations official charter after another. Why is that? It is because it is the country that suffered more than any other from the use of chemical weapons in the Iraq-Iran war where we, tragically, supported the Iraqis, even to the extent of arming them, against the huge losses of life by Iran. Why do I say that? It is because Iran is an ally of Syria and hates the use of chemical weapons. I suggest that it would be sensible for us to explore, possibly through the good offices of France, whether Iran would be prepared to suggest to Syria that it would be entering terribly dangerous territory to go on destroying its fellow citizens at the rate at which the Government have done over the past few weeks.