Syria and the Middle East

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, when contemplating the recent course of events in the Middle East: Syria’s seemingly unending agony, Egypt slipping back into a military-dominated regime, and Libya struggling to cope with post-Gaddafi chaos, it is far too easy to succumb to pessimism and to allow it to persuade us—and perhaps even to justify—the merits of detachment and inaction. One can hear from time to time in this country when discussing this region the mutterings of little Englanders who say, “Let’s just leave them to get on with it”.

I say that that is easy, but it is quite misguided, even in terms of a narrow definition of our national interest, let alone of the stake we have, as a permanent member of the Security Council and, as with the rest of Europe, as a close neighbour of the Middle East, in that region’s future stability, security and prosperity. After all, for the foreseeable future we will depend on that region for a substantial part of our energy security. It is the origin of a large proportion of the illegal immigrants flooding into Europe, and it represents an all too present threat to us of a new wave of terrorism. All that is without counting the risk of a new regional conflict if the Iranian nuclear problem cannot be resolved by peaceful diplomatic means. Therefore, detachment and inaction would simply be against our national interest, however unappealing and challenging engagement might seem to be.

Engagement need not—and it should not—be seen as favouring military intervention. Here are four elements of such a policy of engagement which do not involve military engagement, to which I would welcome a response from the Minister when she replies to the debate.

Expectations of the Syrian peace talks in Geneva last month were, mercifully, low, so we can afford to salute the persistence and ingenuity of the UN’s mediator, Lakhdar Brahimi, to whom other noble Lords have referred, without appearing to be totally Panglossian. Brahimi has, so far, kept in his hands the slender thread—a very slender thread now—of a process that could lead to a transition to a post-Assad Syria. He has managed to bring some modest relief to the beleaguered citizens of Homs, but he needs help and much wider and stronger strategic international backing if he is to move beyond that. I agree with others who have said that the short-term priority should be to bring humanitarian relief to the citizens of many other places—to Aleppo and parts of Damascus, in particular—who are being starved into submission and bombarded with weapons whose use in crowded, inhabited areas must surely constitute a war crime.

Last week’s unanimous Security Council resolution was, of course, very welcome, although the fact that it is not mandatory must leave us with a little scepticism about how much humanitarian relief will actually get through. I would be grateful if the Minister would say what we are going to do to press the regime in particular, but also, of course, the other combatants, to let humanitarian relief through. Should we not be thinking of ways to increase the pressure on the regime if it does, indeed, block the application of that resolution? Is any thought at all being given, for example, to suspending Syria from its membership of the United Nations General Assembly, a course that was taken with South Africa and with Serbia in the past and which did a great deal to sober those regimes up and bring home to them that they were at real reputational risk, to put it mildly.

Secondly, I shall say a word about the oft-derided Middle East peace process. Perhaps because the spotlight is no longer on the principal participants in that process, the talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, to which the US Secretary of State is so laudably devoting a high priority, seem marginally less hopeless than they have often appeared in the past. Perhaps it is finally dawning on the two sets of protagonists that they can no longer count on the unquestioning support of their external backers. The fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been criticised for even contemplating the possibility that some Israeli settlers might find themselves living in a Palestinian state is surely a welcome first and a sign that some new thinking may be starting to percolate.

Are the Government encouraging the United States to put some proposals or ideas for a comprehensive settlement on the table? Surely, experience tells us that it is hard to believe that without that, any decisive progress will ever be made. It is not the two parties that are going to put proposals on the table who will break the deadlock. What thought is being given to the contribution that the European Union might make to any such settlement? Would it not also be valuable if something was said in public, including about the contribution the EU might make, and also about the sort of relationship that a post-settlement Israel could hope to have with the European Union, a relationship which is obviously extraordinarily important to Israel in the longer term?

Negotiations with Iran, to which several noble Lords have referred, for a comprehensive successor to the interim nuclear agreement reached last November are just getting under way. Can the Minister say anything about the objectives that the Government, together with their partners in the 5+1 process, will be pursuing in those negotiations? What would we, and they, be prepared to put on the table in response to an Iran that could satisfy the international community durably and verifiably as to the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme? That is, what would the end state from our side of that negotiation look like if the Iranians came to the end state that they would want to see on their side? What, too, are we doing to set out the case to those in the US Congress who are contemplating action that could shipwreck the whole process? What action are we taking to bring home to them our hope that they will stay their hand and give diplomacy a chance? We should, after all, be under no illusions. If diplomacy fails with Iran, the risk of a conflict that could draw in other regional players and those outside the region would be real, and the possible consequences of that are likely to be seriously damaging for all concerned, ourselves included.

It is obviously difficult to plot a direction of travel for our policy in the Middle East, which will clearly be prey to insecurity and instability for years and possibly decades to come. But the setbacks that have followed the Arab awakening should not, I suggest, divert us from pursuing the broad objectives of helping all the countries in the region to move towards pluralist democracy, sound market-based economies, the rule of law and respect for human rights and for religious and ethnic minorities. The route that each country takes may well involve more zig-zags than straight lines, as is the case in Egypt. We should not be too prescriptive in our responses. What we should do is to respond with firm support for those such as Tunisia, which seem to be making real progress along that path. Is that how the Government see things?

I am sure that I have overlooked much—Bahrain, Yemen, Sunni-Shia tensions and more besides—but I hope that the main message that the Government will give is that Britain is not about to turn its back on a region that needs to remain a key focus of our foreign policy.