Iraq

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly believe that we should join in the military intervention in Iraq but with our eyes wide open. The Iraqi Government have asked for our support, so intervention would be legal. We have excellent Armed Forces to provide that support. We would be joining a coalition with Iraq and, crucially, with others from the region. We know what our aim is: namely, to degrade and weaken ISIS so that properly trained Kurdish and Iraqi forces can regain control of those parts of northern Iraq now under ISIS control and thus remove the prospect of a vicious and maverick fundamentalist state in the Middle East threatening our and others’ interests. But it is in the achievement of those aims that the problems may lie. The only certain thing about war is that it never turns out as you expect. When the difficulties arise, the arguments for involvement in the first place can start to look, with the benefit of hindsight, distinctly shaky. Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya all show that.

Therefore, let us look beyond today. It is not clear that air strikes will be enough. Nor is it clear that the Iraqi and Kurdish fighters, even when trained, will be able to defeat ISIS on the ground, even an ISIS that has been weakened by air strikes. So our trainers may edge ever closer to a combat role, with all the risks to them and to opinion at home that that will bring. On the political level, I suspect that Iran will continue its shift from enemy to ally—an uncomfortable but, I suspect, necessary process that was inevitable from the day that a Sunni-led Government were replaced in Baghdad by a Shia-led Government.

Finally, the logic of not intervening in Syria, while in my view correct today, will look increasingly uncertain as it becomes clear that the Syria-Iraq border is no more than a line on a map. The question of the legality of an intervention in Syria, even if there is no UN Security Council resolution because, for example, of a Russian veto, will become paramount. I believe that it will not be an insoluble problem—Kosovo is a precedent—and I note what the Minister has said. None the less, it would be a difficult issue.

These are not questions that need or can be answered now. But if we agree to a military intervention in Iraq now, as I believe that we should, we should do so in full recognition of the probability, and I would say certainty, that some or all of these questions—British troops on the ground, intervention in Syria, perhaps in semi-alliance with Bashar Assad, and closer alliance with Iran—will arise in, say, two or three years’ time. We cannot afford ourselves the luxury then of saying that if we had appreciated the difficulties now we would not have voted for intervention today. As I have said, I am strongly in favour of that intervention today but with our eyes wide open.