Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dannatt]

My Lords, the Leader of the House began and finished his speech in opening this debate by referring to the issues before us as simple. On one level they are simple. It is simple to say that the use of chemical weapons and the results of the casualties that they can inflict are abhorrent, that they are a moral outrage and that therefore the issue is simple. I fully agree with the notion that we should do all we can to prevent their use, but I take that simple notion and hold it up against the complexity of the situation that is the civil war in Syria, and that apparently simple aspiration melts away against that complexity.

For the past two years, looking at the Syrian civil war we have agonised over what form of military intervention we might be able to follow, but each time we have pulled back because the issues are too difficult. We have pulled back from arming the opposition because we do not really know enough about it and there is a high likelihood that some of the weapons that we supply will wind up in the hands of the same people we are fighting in Afghanistan. We have pulled back from a no-fly zone because the technical and practical difficulties are too great. We do not have the ability to take out the Syrian integrated air defence system. That is too difficult. That would require a major military operation. We have pulled back from that. If we cannot do that, we cannot establish humanitarian corridors or safe areas.

We have pulled back from military intervention because the risks and consequences, whether intended or unintended, are too great and the uncertainties that we have identified are too many. But we are still looking at possible intervention in the Syrian civil war, and we are now looking at it in the narrower context of taking military action in this apparently simple manner of deterring the further use of chemical weapons. Even within that very limited objective, have we really thought this through in the way in which the military would require intervention to be thought through? Can we state with certainty what our strategic objectives are?

We are told now that our strategic objectives are actually very limited, that regime change is not the objective, but we have been saying for the past two years that Assad cannot stay as leader of that country. We are unclear about our strategic objective, in which case we can have no campaign plan that adds up. The campaign plan must have a beginning, middle and end and it must take us to an exit strategy that leaves the place that we have gone to in a better situation than it was before we went. I do not think that we know how to do that because the risks, uncertainties and unintended consequences are too great.

So what do we do? Clearly, your Lordships believe that we should be doing something. Doing nothing is probably not our historical responsibility. What we should be doing, in my view, is two things, in the main. First, we should renew with great ferocity our diplomatic activity, particularly to try, through greater dialogue with the Russians, to bring some degree of unanimity to the United Nations Security Council. Why is Russia so key? Russia is so key because Assad looks at the world from Damascus and he looks at the West and says, “They don’t like me but I don’t care. I look to the east and the Russians support me, and the Iranians, and to an extent the Chinese. I don’t care about the West. From my perspective, I am supported and I am in position because the Russians are supporting me”. We have to work the dialogue with the Russians in a very open way and, dare I say it, work much harder than we have been able to do in the past, because some degree of unanimity is really important in the UN Security Council.

We also have to work much harder for regional engagement and regional peace. What if we had bombed Iran two years ago? Would we have any chance of the kind of dialogue that is now potentially beginning with Iran? No, there would be no dialogue there. Regional engagement is critical.

The other major thing that we should do is rigorously apply law. When a leader of a country has broken international criminal norms, he must know that there is a very high probability that he will wind up in the dock somewhere in The Hague. I have given evidence in The Hague against leaders who have done just that; I am doing so again later this year. Assad and others must know that if they do that, this will be their fate —unless they are killed in the execution of their crimes.

Finally, what has been happening in our country this week has been very interesting. The drums of war were banging very loudly two or three days ago. The people did not like it. The dialogue and the debate have changed. The other place has been considering a different Motion from the one that was probably intended, looking for more time, a second debate, a second vote. The drumbeat has got quieter, and that is really important. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden, has already alluded to this: the people who have to carry out the military actions that we might or might not require are the soldiers, sailors and airmen of our Armed Forces. They are not some kind of elite who are kept in a box and just wheeled out when they are needed; they are citizens, like your Lordships and me, who absolutely have to know that what they are being asked to do is what the country wants them to do and what the country believes is right. We do not govern by consensus, but we are a democracy and the people have a very important voice in this.

I am delighted that the drumbeat has become more muffled. I do not support intervention in Syria in any shape or form at this time. Circumstances might change. There might be an international agreement if we work the diplomatic peace and regional engagement better. There might then be an opportunity, rather like Dayton, for an international force to go in to implement an agreement. That is a long way away, but it is the only set of circumstances in which I would be prepared to support military intervention.