Middle East Debate
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Karen Buck
Main Page: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)Department Debates - View all Karen Buck's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(9 years ago)
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Andy Slaughter
With all due respect to the Prime Minister, my hon. Friend is quite right: his was a rather simplistic analogy.
Secondly, there is no functioning international alliance that can turn short-term military games into a programme for the peaceful governance of Syria. The Vienna talks are a start to such a process, but at present the aims of Turkey, Russia, Iran and the NATO countries are so disparate as to be chaotic.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is essential to build an international alliance in order to take action against ISIL/Daesh in many ways other than air strikes? That includes stopping the flow of weapons into Syria and, above all, blocking the revenue, particularly the oil revenue, that is flowing in at a rate of $1.5 million a day. We need to demonstrate that there is international co-operation on those things, alongside any measures that the Government may propose.
Andy Slaughter
I agree, and I will come in a moment to what I think we should be doing.
In addition to the lack of tactical and strategic bases, my third test is that the permanent defeat of Daesh in Syria requires the end of conflict, which is what allows it to thrive. Any short-term retrenchment will likely benefit the Assad regime, which is itself responsible for seven times as many civilian deaths as Daesh this year. That may mean a shift in the balance of forces, but it will bring us no nearer to resolution.