Iraq

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has given us a calm and logical voice of sanity on these problems. My concern is that in the hothouse of tensions in the area, there are not many cool heads around and that the dangers of all the courses which he set out may not be immediately apparent to any of those who may embark on them. I read the announcement today that Shia hit squads in Baghdad are deliberately targeting perfectly moderate Sunnis, obviously to stir up further hatred and conflict.

My noble friend the Minister set out clearly the Government’s understanding of the position at the moment. One of the difficulties is that the position is extremely confused. An interesting illustration of this was the bombing of ISIS. There seem to be three candidates now running: some people said it was the Americans, the tribesmen said it was the Syrians and meanwhile the Iraqi air force is having a little bombing run of its own at the oil refinery at Baiji. I listen to those who think that military intervention might somehow be helpful and say how far we should go in that support. There is a feeling that you can bomb incredibly accurately and always hit the right people. I do not quite know how you would actually bomb ISIS. Would you hit ISIS camps in the desert or kill moderate Sunnis, who are temporary hostages of the ISIS organisation at the moment?

Critical to this situation, it seems, is this: where is the majority Sunni population at present? Are they effectively hostages or motivated at the moment by such hatred of the unfair Government in Baghdad, as they see it, that they have gone along with ISIS but, on reflection, will not wish to see Iraq broken up? In any of the dealings I have had, I found that there is a loyalty to Iraq even though there are Sunni and Shia factions and they are often so bitterly divided. Will they want to see it break up and, when it comes to the crunch, how many of the Sunni are actually Baathists who will not want to see the Islamists coming through? There may be people who could be brought forward to help within the inclusive Government who many have talked about, perhaps under a more inclusive leader than Mr Maliki.

However, the idea of keeping the borders and seeing that go forward satisfactorily under a more inclusive Government then hits the Kurdish roadblock. I see that Secretary Kerry, having talked to President Barzani in Erbil, has found that there was something less than enthusiasm for sticking to the good old boundaries. If you add into that Kirkuk, which has been their ambition for such a long time, I do not see any great enthusiasm there to give that city up. I spent a little time with the Kurds at the end of the first Gulf War, when we did Operation Provide Comfort. I flew into northern Iraq when we were providing air cover to prevent the air strikes from Saddam and his helicopter gunships. At that time, one saw the determination and resolution of the Kurds and the Peshmerga. Of course, the Peshmerga did not have any air cover but in terms of ground forces, they were certainly a very resolute lot and I do not think that they will be easily dislodged.

Following on from that, we obviously face the risk of an appallingly dangerous situation, as many other noble Lords have said. I said in the debate on the Queen’s Speech that a distinguished Jordanian had said to me that he felt, some months ago, there was the risk of a conflagration that would go from Beirut to Mumbai. I wrote that down and the next morning—the morning of the Lords debate, as noble Lords may remember—we heard about Mosul, when ISIS first appeared aggressively on the scene. Of course, it is not Beirut to Mumbai but Mali to Mumbai, with Boko Haram and the scale of the chaos across that area. My noble friend Lord Howell referred to what might have been a huge stabilising influence in Egypt, which is now in total chaos as far as one sees, with journalists locked up and half the opposition now sentenced to death. The reality of the new Government in Egypt gives great cause for concern.

Against that background there is the danger of this going so much wider, which would then involve a lot of other people as well. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, referred to Iran, which is obviously acutely concerned by the situation. If we are really going to see significant conflagration and Sunni, Shia and Islamist activities then Russia will have concerns, as will China. The risks that my noble friend referred to in Jordan and Lebanon must also be high on our list of priorities. It is against that background that, while respecting the sensitivities of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Israel about our involvement with Iran, I welcome the opening of the embassy in Tehran and very much hope that we can find ways in which, without compromising our support for the Gulf states, Iran can make a constructive contribution.

I end with the unhelpful comment of Gertrude Bell about the people in the region, which I see the New Statesman has quoted:

“No one knows exactly what they do want, least of all themselves, except that they don’t want us”.

That is the theme that came through from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours: that our interventions in recent years have not been manifestly helpful.

However, now we face a serious situation. I certainly do not see our role as military; I see it as humanitarian and advisory in any way that we can to assist a response, possibly a United Nations response, to try to bring order and help to what is in danger of becoming a tragic situation.