ISIL in Syria

Debate between Julian Lewis and Lisa Cameron

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Hon. Members are being asked to back airstrikes against Daesh in order to show solidarity with our French and American friends, yet a gesture of solidarity, however sincerely meant, cannot be a substitute for hard-headed strategy.

Most Defence Committee members probably intend to vote for such airstrikes, but I shall vote against airstrikes, in the absence of credible ground forces, as ineffective and potentially dangerous, just as I voted against the proposal to bomb Assad in 2013. Indeed, the fact that the British Government wanted to bomb first one side and then the other in the same civil war, and in such a short space of time, illustrates to my mind a vacuum at the heart of our strategy.

At least we are now targeting our deadly Islamist enemies, rather than trying to bring down yet another dictator with the same likely results as in Iraq and Libya. Daesh must indeed be driven out of its territory militarily, but that can be done only by a credible force that is ready and able to do the fighting on the ground. So who will supply that force, without which airstrikes cannot prevail?

The failure of the ineptly named “Arab spring” in so many countries shows the two most likely outcomes: a victory for authoritarian dictatorship on the one hand, or a victory for revolutionary Islamism on the other. Moderation and democracy have barely featured in the countries affected, and Syria seems to be no exception. I am genuinely sorry to say that we face a choice between very nasty authoritarians and Islamist totalitarians; there is no third way.

Our Government, however, are in denial about that. They do concede that airstrikes must be in support of ground forces, and they have come up with a remarkable figure, from the Joint Intelligence Committee, of 70,000 so-called moderate fighters with whom we can supposedly co-ordinate our airstrikes. It is very doubtful, however, were such an alliance to be successful, that the territory freed from Daesh would cease to be under Islamist control.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

Can the right hon. Gentleman comment specifically on the independent reports indicating that the Free Syrian Army is currently selling supplied weapons to Daesh in its own fight against Assad?