Iraq

Lord Hughes of Woodside Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hughes of Woodside (Lab)]

My Lords, I share the view of almost everyone in this House that we support the Government’s resolution, which of course has the support of the Labour Opposition in the other place.

Some people have said in this debate that we must learn the lessons of the Iraq war of 2003. I agree. We have to make the correct analysis and provide the correct decisions. I am not at all ashamed to say that I supported the Iraq war of 2003. I thought it was right then and I still think it is right. The failure was not the intervention itself but the belief that once the yoke of Saddam had been lifted, the yearning for democracy would solve all the problems without any difficulty.

Of course, Iraq is not alone in this. With the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, the long-suppressed enmities suddenly erupted and people started to kill each other as though nothing had happened in the past. Of course, the same thing happened elsewhere, although perhaps not to such an extent. In Libya, where the West—if I can use the phrase “the West”—encouraged and, I might even say, connived in the downfall of Gaddafi, we were left with a fractured state. So it is not the interventions that cause the problem, it is the failure to decide what happens afterwards.

My noble friend Lord Reid of Cardowan asked a very important question: what is the strategy? I would pose two other questions: what will the strategy be and who will it involve? We all speak about Syria. Of course, defeating ISIL in Iraq is important. Defeating ISIL in Syria is important, but what will happen? Are we going in to support Assad? Thankfully, the rhetoric has mellowed, at least in this debate. You no longer hear the simple slogan in the gravelly voice of Mr Hague: “It is unacceptable that Assad remains head of Syria. Assad must go before there can be any solution”. We have to think beyond that. It is going to be very difficult because the ravenous media that we have want instant solutions. There needs to be a lot of thought on this. We do not want to repeat the mistake of defeating ISIL but what do we do then? Do we support a new rebel group against Assad? Will that lead to any greater peace? I think not.

These decisions are not easy to take. I am certainly not one who believes that military intervention by itself will solve anything. This has proved not to be the case. There has been a failure so far from the Government and elsewhere to say what happens next. I fear that what will happen next is that boots will be required on the ground. Air strikes will not do. If the Americans decide they are going into Syria, will we go in there as well?

I accept that there are more questions than answers, but unless we ask the questions we will never get to the answers. We live in extremely dangerous times in which we cannot sit back and let ISIL and others commit the atrocities that they are committing and say, “It’s all right, it’s somebody else’s problem”.