Middle East

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Four out of four of our speakers have been brilliant. My contribution will be a little more modest.

I have two problems with the proposed intervention in Syria, but that is not to say that the Government do not care, and that nothing has been done to engage the support of Members on both sides of the House. This is the result of careful thought over a number of years, not a conclusion that we have come to over the past two or three weeks. We recognise the appalling nature of the attacks in France, just as we recognise the attacks in the Lebanon the previous day, the earlier attacks on a Russian aeroplane, and, before that, the attack on the beach in Tunisia.

The question is not how we deal with these attacks today or tomorrow, but how we solve the problems of ISIL on a long-term basis. First, we must not find ourselves using boots on the ground. This matter is not something that can be solved by Britain, the United States, Russia or France. The Prime Minister has made it clear that our boots are not to be used in Syria, nor are those of any westerners, which, for the moment, include those of Russia.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I am always extremely worried when someone makes a definitive statement that says that we will not use our armed forces to defend our interests.

[Mr Turner]

I can well understand my hon. Friend fearing that, but the Prime Minister himself said that we shall not have boots on the ground.

Where are those supporters coming from? We are not speaking about one army under one general but several different factions, some of which are competing against each other. We cannot repeat what happened in Libya. It is not clear whether these factions, which the 70,000 Syrian fighters comprise, are organised and prepared to act, and whether they can move into ISIL ground quickly, because otherwise new criminals will arrive and appear as soon as the old ones are destroyed. The support needs to be reliable and sustainable. How can we be sure that these are forces to count on?

There is not one clear enemy to fight. The Russians appear to support Assad while we support rebel fighters declared as “moderate”. Russia’s support of Assad has resulted in strikes hitting the moderates. If there was an agreement with Russia, it would be much nearer what we are aiming for. If there was agreement from Syria—from the moderates and the Assadis—it would form a united front. I believe that a successful fight against ISIL is possible only when everyone on the allies’ side works together to defeat them.

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[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) on securing this important debate. I agree that the United Kingdom has a peculiar responsibility for the region. Indeed, it is unique, given the high standing that our country has throughout the middle east.

I pay tribute, too, to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee for his leadership on our recent visit to the region and for the way in which he has put the Committee front and centre of the debate in the run-up to the important vote that we will shortly hold.

The impression that I took away from our visit to Tehran and Riyadh was one of the mutual hostility, suspicion and antagonism that exists between the two regional powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran. That tension is starting to spill over, not just in Yemen, but in Bahrain and now so tragically in Syria. Many other countries, including Kuwait, are caught up in the appalling tension between those two powers. I am pleased that in the Vienna talks Iran and Saudi Arabia are around the same table for the first time in a long time. As I said to the Prime Minister last week, it is vital that the United Kingdom uses its good offices in the United Nations to encourage and facilitate dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

[Bob Stewart]

On that point, we must fully understand that the United Kingdom still has an exceptionally good reputation in the middle east, despite the fact that we have lost so much of our military power. We are still regarded as friends.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Very much so. When one travels throughout the middle east, time and again people highlight the fact that they see us as an impartial and honourable interlocutor and as people who can facilitate dialogue to try to dissipate some of the tension in the region.

We recently saw the extraordinary strength of British diplomacy, particularly over the nuclear agreement with Iran. If we cast our minds back to the extraordinary tensions with that country—by the way, during our visit we spent time at the British embassy, which had previously been trashed by students—we can see the great accomplishment of that painstaking British diplomacy. I pay tribute to our Foreign Secretary for playing a substantial role in the agreement. It shows what British diplomacy can achieve. I therefore do not believe that it is naive or unrealistic to expect that the United Kingdom could and ought to be trying to secure better dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

It is, however, essential that the Government are probed on strategy and planning in the run-up to a potential bombing of Syria. I spent quite a lot of time on that delegation to the middle east with my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). He wrote an article in The Mail on Sunday yesterday outlining the case against bombing in Syria, and he is the only one among the entire Conservative parliamentary party who voted against the bombing campaign in Libya. That was an extremely courageous thing to do—to ignore the rest of the Conservative parliamentary party and go into the opposite Lobby. I pay tribute to him—he is a former soldier—for the tremendous courage that he displayed at that time.

I recall from those deliberations how the Opposition, the Liberal Democrats and the Government all rushed to support the bombing of Gaddafi. It was a highly emotional time for us. He promised to instigate a bloodbath in Benghazi and, as has been said, we wanted to do something so we sanctioned the bombing of his military capability. Getting rid of a dictator is easy. What is more challenging is the planning that has to take place in order to ensure that the country is then administered properly, and that those important seeds of a democratic society are allowed to germinate before we pass on responsibility to local politicians.

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[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I want to concentrate on the possible effectiveness of air strikes against Daesh in Syria.

Let me begin by looking at Daesh as a military force. The current Daesh order of battle was set up by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who established the so-called worldwide caliphate on 29 June 2014. I understand from my friends that Daesh terrorists are extremely well trained. My contacts say that training courses are sophisticated and last at least three months. Weapons training ranges from pistols to anti-aircraft weapons, and some people can drive tanks and fire them. Daesh has further strengthened its military capability by capturing large quantities and varieties of weapons in places such as Mosul. It has improved its capacity to carry out subsequent operations and obtain even more equipment. Its weaponry includes T-54 tanks—I know how potent they are because I was struck by one in my own armoured vehicle—T-72s and M1 Abrams. It includes armoured cars and Humvees, surface-to-air missiles, BM-21s, which used to be called Stalin’s organ, howitzers and guns, as well as anti-tank missiles such as Stinger.

Daesh is no pushover, which explains why some of the ground forces ranged against it have not made better progress. We are about to consider extending Royal Air Force combat operations to include Syria as well as Iraq. To me, that makes military sense. From Daesh’s point of view, there is no Sykes-Picot line between Iraq and Syria.

Military orthodoxy states that wars cannot be won from the air, and that the enemy must be beaten on the ground. I agree, but let me ponder that for a moment. We won the air campaign in the battle of Britain in 1940, and saved our country from invasion by Nazi Germany. We should remember that Churchill then made a pact with Stalin against Hitler. Today, should we not consider opening a dialogue with President Assad’s regime to defeat the huge threat of Daesh, which is enemy to Syria, the United Kingdom and, indeed, the whole world?

In 1999, in the Kosovo campaign, air power was crucial, but we needed ground troops too. Air power won it. In 2011, colleagues will remember that it was from the air that the inhabitants of Benghazi in Libya were saved from having their throats cut, as promised by Colonel Gaddafi. Obviously, it went wrong from there. In 2014, Daesh forces were prevented from advancing and taking Baghdad in Iraq, mainly by US air power. Troops were needed then. And today Daesh is severely constrained within its territory because any force that it concentrates could easily be identified and destroyed by our air power. Remember, the Royal Air Force now contributes 30% of the intelligence above Syria.

Military campaigns are fought in phases. I accept that the first military phase in beating Daesh may well be to destroy or severely restrict its activities from the air, then soldiers with rifles need to exploit that advantage. I hope that such forces come from middle east countries, but I would not bet on it. Finally, I believe that to destroy Daesh in Syria and in Iraq, we need to work with the Governments of Syria and Iraq. We may also, at some stage, need to use our own armed forces too, because they may be needed to protect our country by operating in the middle east yet again.