ISIL in Syria

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

The Committee resolved four to three that the Prime Minister

“has not adequately addressed concerns”

contained in the Committee’s second report. The right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) and the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), who would have resisted, were absent. It is on a narrow point where, logically, it is almost impossible for the Prime Minister to adequately meet those concerns, given the fact he is not in a position to produce sufficient detail to satisfy some of my colleagues. It is a very weak point for the Leader of the Opposition to rely on. He needs to go to the substance.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He and I have often had very amicable discussions on many of these issues and I am sure we will again. The fact is, however, that at a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee the verdict was that the Prime Minister had not adequately addressed concerns. Obviously, I understand there are differences of opinion. Goodness, there are plenty of differences of opinion all around this House, on both the Government and Opposition Benches. I therefore ask the Chair of the Select Committee to recognise that a decision has been made by his Committee.

After the despicable and horrific attacks in Paris last month, the question of whether the Government’s proposals for military action in Syria strengthen or undermine our own national security must be at the centre of our deliberations.

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[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

There are those who have honourably opposed intervention on every occasion since 2003, including my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), a fellow member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the mover of today’s principal amendment. Part of the strength of his case is that he was undoubtedly right over Iraq in 2003 and, prima facie, Libya in 2011—that is the subject of a Committee inquiry. However, it is my judgment that he was wrong last year to oppose our support for the Government of Iraq against ISIL. I do not know what he would say to the Yazidi families rescued by British forces and British helicopters from the terror that ISIL brought, and I am satisfied that our military effort in Iraq over the past year has been to the enormous credit of our armed forces and has stabilised Iraq in the face of a rapidly advancing threat from ISIL. It wholly justified the strong majority that this House then gave for that intervention.

[Mr Baron]

My hon. Friend directly referred to me, so I will answer him as best I can. The reason a number of us opposed the motion about airstrikes in Iraq last year was simply that we did not feel then—and I still have great reservations now—that we had a comprehensive plan. We have not beaten ISIL in Iraq, despite nearly 1 million security forces on the Government payroll. That brings us on to Syria, because we have nothing near that in Syria and we still do not have that plan.

[Crispin Blunt]

The position in Iraq was desperate. Baghdad was threatened by the advance of ISIL, and it was absolutely necessary that the international community went to the aid of the Government and the people of Iraq.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My hon. Friend talks about the desperation in Iraq. I have just had an email from someone, who shall remain anonymous, who is working in Raqqa. They said, “Daesh are the death that is stretching from the east. When you see them, it is as if you are seeing the angel of death. They are in Raqqa right now. How can I carry on exposing my child to severed heads and hanging bodies on a daily basis? A mother in Raqqa.”

[Crispin Blunt]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Whether we like it or not, the reality is that ISIL is at war with us. We do not have to confect some case about weapons of mass destruction. This is not about a threat to the citizens of a country from their own Government, but about people at war with us, our values and our society. This is not a war of choice. I have not spoken to anyone who demurs from the proposition that ISIL must be denied the territory that it currently controls. Although the defeat of ISIL and its ideology will be the work of many years, even decades, the retaking of that territory is an urgent and immediate requirement. That therefore is the mission, which is virtually impossible to achieve, while the civil war rages in Syria. It is also a necessary first step.

After the negotiations and the agreement of the International Syria Support Group at Vienna on 14 November, a way can be seen to that transition. Before then, the Government were not able to offer an answer to our question, which was this: which ground forces will take hold and administer the territories captured from ISIL in Syria to the satisfaction of the Committee? In the wake of that meeting, they could and did provide an answer.

Indeed the Prime Minister made the point today, when he rather revealingly mentioned the “real” plan. This “real” plan is the ideal solution, which is referenced on page 20 of the Prime Minister’s response to the Foreign Affairs Committee, in which he envisages the political transition in Syria, allowing a new leadership and reform of the Syrian Arab Army, to enable it to tackle terrorist groups in defence of the Syrian nation. The Syrian army fighting alongside the Free Syrian Army ideally need to be the forces that reclaim Syria for a new Syrian republic. However, we should not imagine for one minute that they can accomplish that task on their own. We need to influence the policy of our coalition partners and that of the whole international community to face up to the reality that that entails. This is the crucial issue: how would we, the United Kingdom, exercise the greatest influence? Everything that I have heard in the last month of taking evidence on this issue suggests that our role as a compromised and limited member of the coalition against ISIL, operating only in Iraq, weakens that influence.

We can debate the efficacy of airstrikes and the additional capability that Brimstone missiles bring to the whole coalition, but the truth is that we all know that those issues are marginal to the outcome. What is not marginal to the outcome is getting the international politics right. It is not in the interest of our country, or the people whom we represent, for this House to deny the Government the authority that they need today. I am now satisfied that the Government, who, along with the Americans, helped block the transition process by our preconditions on the role of Bashar al-Assad, can now play a critically constructive role in the transition.

Indeed, my criticism of today’s motion is that the Government should be seeking wider authority from the House. Limiting the targeting to ISIL and excluding al-Nusra and any future terrorist groups that will be listed by the United Nations, as envisaged under UN Security Council resolution 2249, is a restriction that I do not understand. If armed groups put themselves beyond recall in the judgment of both the International Syria Support Group and the UN Security Council, then our armed forces should be authorised to act within the law.

Equally, the limitation on deploying UK troops in ground combat operations shows a lack of foresight. We know that both Syrian and Iraqi armed forces will need the maximum possible help, which arguably should include the embedding of trainers in the fighting echelon capability. I am also talking about artillery and engineers, as well as comprehensive logistical service support, command and control and communications functions. Where will those come from? As this mission must succeed, the war-winning capabilities may need to be found from beyond the neighbouring Sunni countries. The whole of the United Nations, which includes us, may be required to provide that effective military capability.

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[Hon. Members]

Go on, give way.

[Crispin Blunt]

I am afraid that I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman. He is my colleague and friend, and he has made such an excellent impression on the Foreign Affairs Committee so far. If there is time at the end, I will take his intervention.

However, if the Government have chosen a path that will require them to come back to the House for more authority, then that is the Government’s choice. To my mind, ISIL is such a clear and present danger to the civilised world that if all necessary means are endorsed by the Security Council, we should endorse them too.

The Foreign Affairs Committee will continue our inquiry into the international strategy to defeat ISIL and, on behalf of this House, to hold the Government to account in full detail. The right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), who is unwell but hopefully in recovery—we wish her a speedy recovery—has communicated to me that she will be supporting the Government this evening. It does not take much guessing to know which side the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) will be on this evening. In my judgment, this House will best discharge its responsibilities by giving our Government the authority they need not just to act with our international partners against this horror, but to influence those partners to make the necessary compromises in their national objectives, and to ensure the collective security of all nations.

[Stephen Gethins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I pay tribute to him for his work as Chairman of the Committee. We will not be in the same Lobby tonight, but I pay tribute to him none the less. Earlier on, he talked about where we should sit on this issue. It says in our report that, during our evidence, several witnesses suggested that by participating in military action against ISIL in Syria, the UK would compromise its diplomatic capability.

[Crispin Blunt]

We all have to come to our own conclusions. I say to him and to the House that nothing I have heard in the past month has pointed towards anything except the opposite of that conclusion. Ministers have been clear about that evidence. When we asked that question in every single country that we went to, we were told that the UK’s position was compromised by the fact that we were only half in and half out of the coalition. It is a position of no conceivable diplomatic benefit, and it is one that this House should rectify this evening.

Part of the Prime Minister’s challenge is that we were both in the House 12 years ago when another Prime Minister delivered an utterly compelling performance and we made the United Kingdom party to a disaster in the middle east. It is right that we should be mindful of our recent history, but we must not be hamstrung by it.

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[Dr Lewis]

In a moment.

In an attempt to try to establish the facts about the 70,000, I made inquiries of two people whose expert opinion I much admire. One is the writer and journalist Patrick Cockburn, who is one of Britain’s leading commentators on Syria and Iraq and who was one of the first to write about the threat from what was then called ISIS, long before it captured Mosul. This is what he tells me:

“Unfortunately, the belief that there are 70,000 moderate opposition fighters on the ground in Syria is wishful thinking. The armed opposition is dominated by Isis or al-Qaeda type organisations. There are many small and highly fragmented groups of opposition fighters who do not like Assad or Isis and could be described as non-extremist, but they are generally men from a single clan, tribe or village. They are often guns for hire and operate under licence from the al-Qaeda affiliate, the al-Nusra Front, or its near equivalent, Ahrar al-Sham. Many of these groups seek to present a moderate face abroad but remain violently sectarian and intolerant inside Syria.”

[Crispin Blunt]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Lewis]

No, I am sorry—I promised to give way to the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham).

[Dr Lewis]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. It is not only ridiculous but highly dangerous. I will insert at this point something I was going to leave out, and say in passing that to have separate conflicts going on within the same battlespace, without reaching a proper agreement, can lead us into all sorts of nasty confrontations—the worst of which would be if we ended up eyeball to eyeball with the Russians when they and we share the same common enemy in ISIL/Daesh.

The second expert I consulted was our former ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, who describes the Free Syrian Army as

“a ragbag of 58 factions (at the last count) united mainly by a desire to use the FSA appellation in order to secure Gulf, Turkish and Western funding…most of the factions, which are extremely locally based, have no interest whatsoever in being drawn into battles against groups which basically share their sectarian agenda hundreds of miles away in areas with which they are unfamiliar.”

So instead of having dodgy dossiers we now have bogus battalions of moderate fighters.

Once Daesh has been driven out, as it must be driven out—if, eventually, we get an overall military strategy together, which adding a few bombing raids does not comprise—there arises the question of the occupying power, because an occupying power will have to remain in control for many years to come if other Islamists are not going to take over from Daesh. That occupying force must be a Muslim one, and only the Syrian Government army is likely to provide it. Indeed, as the Prime Minister himself acknowledged in the Commons,

“in time the best ground troops should be the Syrian army”.—[Official Report, 26 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1501.]

Airstrikes alone are a dangerous diversion and distraction. What is needed is a grand military alliance involving not only the west but Russia and, yes, its Syrian Government clients too. We need—

[Crispin Blunt]

rose—

[Dr Lewis]

We need—[Hon. Members: “Give way!”] I honestly think that my hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, has had more than his fair share in this debate, and I am going to make use of mine.

We need to choose the lesser of two evils and abandon the fiction of a cosy third choice. There is now a general consensus that the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was a terrible mistake, but Saddam Hussein was every bit as much of a vicious dictator as we are told that Assad is. So ask yourself this when you are thinking about the hard choice that has to be faced tonight: you may feel pious looking back on the wrong decision that was made about Saddam Hussein, but a very similar decision confronts us tonight. It is a question of choosing the lesser of two evils, not fooling ourselves that there is a cosy third option, which is, in reality, a fantasy.

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[Brendan O’Hara]

One can only conclude that the 70,000 figure is a convenient arithmetical creation that adds together a multitude of people from different cultures and factions and with widely differing ambitions for the future of Syria, and I agree that people should be told exactly who they are. I fear that the 70,000 claim will define this Prime Minister’s drive for military intervention in the middle east, just as the claim that we were only 45 minutes from attack defined a previous Prime Minister’s justification for earlier misadventures in the region.

[Crispin Blunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way—and, given that he has been so kind about the Foreign Affairs Committee, the least that he deserves is another minute. May I draw his attention not only—obviously—to the Prime Minister’s statement, but to the work of Charles Lister, who is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre? In a blog on the Spectator site, he broke down the 75,000 figure with reasonable accuracy. The key issue, however, is the change that has taken place over the last month in Vienna.

[Brendan O’Hara]

I certainly commend the Foreign Affairs Committee’s report, which is a first-class piece of work. It also said that any UK involvement in airstrikes was unlikely to constitute a war-winning intervention. Sir Simon Mayall told the Committee:

"This is not a war-winning air campaign, by any stretch of the imagination.”

Even the most enthusiastic cheerleader for UK airstrikes in Syria would have to agree that very few planes will actually be involved and that our contribution will be extremely small. At the same time, however, the Prime Minister was telling us that a major military plank of the argument for airstrikes was that we had a “unique contribution” to make. That “unique contribution” was the Brimstone missile. Indeed, he went on the record as saying that those missiles were “unique assets” that the RAF could contribute, and that he had been lobbied by our coalition partners to bring them to the theatre. As I pointed out to him, the Royal Saudi Air Force has been using Brimstone missiles since February this year.

Let us be honest, Mr Speaker. The UK Government’s desire to take part in the bombing of Syria is less a military contribution than a political statement. Since 2013, the Government have felt that they have been left on the sidelines, and have been itching for a piece of the action. As with so much of the UK’s thinking, this has more to do with how the UK will look to others than with our asking what good we can do. After decades of military intervention in the middle east, we do not have a success to show for it.

There are more than enough people dropping bombs on Syria. We do not have to add to the chaos, the misery and the inevitable casualties by doing so as well. Yes, Daesh is evil; yes, it must be defeated; and, yes, we have a contribution to make—but dropping bombs from 34,000 feet is not the way to do it. Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past. Let us not embark on another middle eastern misadventure. Let us go in with a credible plan to win the peace and secure the future in Syria.