Syria and the Middle East

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, it is a privilege but also a little daunting to be the Back-Bench tail-end charlie in this debate, particularly as I lack the colourful upbringing of the noble Lord, Lord Luce.

The first thing to say is that doing nothing in Syria is simply not an option—not with so many dead and with so much at stake. We have a humanitarian interest in seeking a solution and we have a very great self-interest in a solution. We also have a responsibility. We played a direct role in so many of the emerging problems of the region, where the frontiers were drawn with a remarkably unbending ruler in London and Paris. We used to pursue a policy of divide and rule and, in recent years under Prime Minister Blair, we seem to have pursued a policy of meddle and muddle. We armed Saddam Hussain; then we deposed him. We even armed Osama bin Laden, when he was fighting the Soviets. We were great friends once with the Iranians and then we became great enemies. So it went on.

We have a pretty awful track record of picking winners, and we have no more prospect of being able to pick a winner from among the maelstrom of opposition groups in Syria than monkeys have of writing Shakespeare. That is why arming rebels on our own or as part of an exclusively Western coalition is hopeless: blind optimism of an order worthy of Mr Blair. We need a broader coalition with vision broad enough to recognise that although many of us distance ourselves from the former Prime Minister’s fixation with remodelling the Middle East, much of the rest of the world sees no such distinction and simply sees an old imperialist country still up to its wicked tricks, as my noble friend Lord Bates so colourfully illustrated earlier.

We keep drawing lines in the sand—and what do we find when we cross them? Nothing but more sand. Yet past failures—and there have been so many—do not mean that we should do nothing. If there is no solution to be found by entering the lottery of Syrian opposition groups, neither is there any solution in simply washing our hands.

Syria is not an isolated case. This debate is right to set it in the context of the wider Middle East, which inevitably brings us to the issue of Israel and Palestine. Here, I take a slightly different view from the noble Lords, Lord Turnberg and Lord Anderson. That conflict is connected in as much as it helps to ignite extremism throughout the Middle East and hugely inflames the distrust of the West.

Future generations will look in bewilderment at how we allowed that situation to continue. Let me take just one small example: the Gaza Strip, a territory so small that my noble friend the Minister and I could walk around it in a day. It is 25 miles long and, for most of its length, only three and a half miles wide. We could make every inhabitant rich beyond their wildest dreams for a fraction of the treasure that we have wasted in trying to resolve this problem. However, the situation still grows worse, deliberately made worse by men of evil intent.

On the other side of that equation, Israel is our friend—we support it. However, we watch as Palestinians are beaten and kicked from their homes to enable Israeli settlers illegally to occupy further stretches of Palestinian territory. I read that the new American Secretary of State is optimistic about moving forward on a settlement on that issue, yet I also read that hopes for a two-state settlement are rapidly fading. We shall see—nothing is simple.

We have a right to be involved in such issues. After all, we had a role in causing the problems in the first place. Therefore, while again supporting the absolute and inherent right of Israel to security and peace, can my noble friend in her response assure us that if Israel were to retreat from a two-state to a one-state solution, the British Government would deem it absurd and unacceptable if that solution was sought on any other basis than one man, one vote?

If we are to push for stability and moderation in the Middle East, we must expect our friends in Israel to listen to us, too. We have a right to be involved in such issues, so while once again supporting that inherent right of Israel, we must also expect common sense and balance from her. We will need to talk, not only to Israel but to our other friends in the Middle East and to those who are not our friends—those we dislike and those we openly distrust. We must talk not only to our friends in the Gulf states and elsewhere, to Arab League nations, to Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Russia and China—there is such a long list of them—but also to the extremists, and even to some who we regard as terrorists; even, as the noble Lord, Lord Williams, suggested, to Assad himself. After all, if we can talk to the Taliban, is anyone off limits?

In these exceptionally challenging circumstances, the Prime Minister is doing an exceptional job. He is clearly cautious about sending arms to Syria, and should remain so. He is increasing our humanitarian aid, travelling far and wide in search of common ground, and I am sure that he will keep a very close eye on developments in Iran. As the noble Lord, Lord Howell, suggested in his fascinating remarks, it is time to bring Russia and China in from the cold. I am sure that the Prime Minister will take great note of what the noble Lord said. Most of all, I trust that the Prime Minister will look at security at home in the sobering knowledge that although past Governments’ policy in the Middle East was built on the overriding objective of making this country safe, so far it appears to have failed.

There is so much to say and so little time in which to say it, and I do not want to stretch the patience of the House. I will, therefore, make a closing plea. Syria must not be more of the same. It should mark a new and more mature understanding of what we in this country might achieve. There is no exclusively western solution to this crisis. There might be a regional solution, but that would require the support and understanding of a variety of powers from around the world—a multipolar solution in a multipolar world. In that we might just find not only a formidable and daunting challenge but a liberating opportunity.