Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

David Lammy Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

A few days ago, I found myself rushing to switch off the television because my five and seven-year-old boys were in front of the news when it was showing images of men, women and children who had been gassed and were lying on the floor dead—they were in front of our eyes. It is impossible to have watched events unfold in Syria in the past few years and to have thought anything other than, “If not now, when?”

It is impossible to have watched the footage in the past week and not to have felt the instincts of liberal interventionism pulsating in our consciences. That instinct tells us that we cannot be isolationist, and turn a blind eye to mass murder and wash our hands of the responsibility to act. It is impossible not to think back to the difference that British intervention made for the people of Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Libya and wonder how it can be replicated for the people of Damascus, Homs and Aleppo. However, the tempering of those instincts should be a resounding message seared on the memories of many Members: liberal intervention can fail—and it can fail badly. It can fail if we have no vision of the outcome, no definition of success and no route map to the exit; it can fail if we allow our thirst for justice to trump the patience to secure the greatest possible legitimacy for our action; and it can fail if we forget that our first responsibility is not to make matters worse.

Iraq is not a reason to absolve ourselves from our responsibilities in Syria, but it is a reason to exercise caution, invoke clarity and define a conclusion. This Government seek a blank cheque to use British armed forces in Syria without convincingly and coherently answering the most crucial questions. What constitutes success for a military intervention? If a negotiated settlement is the goal, will military intervention make it more or less likely? Are we comfortable that our intervention is limited to punishing the use of chemical weapons, rather than explicitly to protecting the lives of the Syrian people?

Is it fair for the Prime Minister to imply, as he did today, that this is a humanitarian intervention, when his only ambition is for Britain to be the dispassionate referee of a brutal civil war? If a short and limited military intervention leads not to the cessation of the use of chemical weapons but to an escalation of hostilities or, even worse, retaliation, do we further escalate our involvement or back away entirely? If we escalate, are we comfortable with the slow creep that will place the lives of more war-wary members of our armed services at risk? We need to know the scale of our intervention, the limit of our commitment and the nature of our involvement before we can be asked to affirm it. Parliament cannot be expected to vote on pure sentiment; it needs to vote on specifics.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend, like me, is sickened by the number of times we have voted for war, sometimes to my great shame. What is the hurry? The civil war has been going on for two years. Is it not time that we got on with negotiation and diplomacy?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I know that hon. Members turn away because they think I might not stop them if their intervention is too long. I remind Members that they should address their comments through the Chair so that I can sit them down if they go on too long.

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is precisely right: there is nothing in the motion that could not have been debated next week. We should be very concerned about the speed and haste that is indicated beyond this place.

We should remember that conflicts do not take place without context. This conflict will not take place without history, without suspicion of our intentions or outright hostility to our presence. Syrian Government assertions that French, British and American agents launched the chemical attacks to pave the way for intervention might attract ridicule in this Chamber, but let us not be so naive as to think that there will not be many willing subscribers to this conspiracy theory across the middle east. We must never underestimate the cynicism that surrounds our motives and those of our allies. We must never underestimate the fact that even the most humanitarian of objectives can be misconstrued as a nefarious attempt by the west to project its power. We must never underestimate the fact that we must first win the battle of perception above all else.

Any intervention needs to be demonstrably scrupulous, must involve more than just the usual suspects and must be the last resort of a process that has visibly exhausted all diplomatic means. The recent ratcheting up of rhetoric has come at the expense of reason and has eschewed responsibility. The cacophony of tough words and the insidious indication that attacks could take place as early as this weekend have not facilitated diplomacy or the forging of alliances.

We need cooler heads rather than broader shoulders. The Government must abandon the march for “war by the weekend” and assure the House that any military intervention will be countenanced only after the weapon inspectors have been given time to investigate, free from external pressure. The process might be long and arduous but it is necessary and right.

We are holding this debate on the anniversary of the speech that Martin Luther King made, but he made another speech in 1967 against the Vietnam war. We should reread his words.