Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, there is little fresh to be said after so many wise words this afternoon, but sometimes in the retelling an argument gains strength. I hope that the Government will listen carefully to the mood of the House today.

There is a ghost in the room. No one can reread Prime Minister Blair’s speech of 10 years ago without recoiling in despair and disbelief. The damage done by that policy makes our current Prime Minster’s task far more difficult. Sadly, our word is no longer accepted in many parts of the world, so if we claim to be acting on behalf of the international community we need to make very sure indeed that the international community believes us.

That brings me to the point made by my noble friend Lord Hill, our Leader, in his very fine opening speech this afternoon. He said that a strike would be solely about chemical weapons, nothing more; we would not be intervening in a civil war. But I fear that that is not how much of the world would see it. We are scarcely a disinterested party in Syria. We have stripped recognition from the Assad Government—or regime, as my noble friend Lord Tebbit would have it. We have openly talked about arming the rebels. No matter what we said, we would be seen as taking sides yet again. If we intervene in the civil war in Syria, we would be stepping ever more irrevocably into that bloody swamp of religion and political and cultural rivalries that, so sadly, is so much of the Middle East.

I do not accept that it is a choice of mounting this air strike or doing nothing. There are non-military alternatives that we really have to explore. We have heard a lot of that this afternoon. There is a new Government of sorts in Iran, and in China. The leaders of the world next week are gathering in Moscow. The weapons inspectors in Syria have not even finished their job. The world would swoon in disbelief if we attacked Syria before any of those other alternatives had been fully explored.

What happened in Syria is truly hideous, but we must resist the temptation to do something simply so that politicians can sleep soundly in their beds having done battle with their consciences. We must be cautious. Remember the lessons of the past that go back not just to Blair but to Suez and before that. I wonder whether our moral compass has been steady enough over the years so that when we drag our consciences through the sand we can expect others to stand up and salute.

We might just spend a little time in sober reflection of the fact that—as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, were talking about earlier—it was we in the West, Britain and the United States, who were the prime military suppliers to the Saddam Hussein regime when he was mounting appalling chemical attacks on Iran. I wonder whether, if we at least acknowledged that fact, it might open some of those closed doors in Tehran. While we are talking about Iran, I also wonder whether, if we strike Syria because of its chemical weapons, it means that we have to support Israel if it strikes Iran because of its nuclear capabilities. The consequences of what we do in Syria can never be confined to Syria.

I have spoken before in this House about Syria. It is late in the evening. I commend the Government for their caution and want to see very much more of it. I wish the Prime Minister and his advisers wisdom and patience and I wish the people of Syria peace.