Syria and the Middle East

Lord Luce Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Luce]

My Lords, I cannot quite make up my mind whether it is an advantage or disadvantage to speak at this stage in the debate—I shall probably discover by the time I sit down—particularly after so many remarkable speeches. I am very glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, who has a great feel for foreign policy, not least in the Middle East, and always has something distinctive to say on these matters.

It was 66 years ago when, aged 10, I first went to the Middle East. I landed on the Nile by flying boat and went down the river by steamer to my parents in Khartoum. I had always hoped, when I had the privilege of being sent here, to be able to use the title “Luce of Khartoum” but Gordon unfortunately beat me to it.

In those 66 years, we all know how the Middle East has been a theatre of continual conflict—the Arab-Israel wars, the western interventions in countries such as Iraq and the civil wars of many of those countries. Today, however, we face a highly toxic cocktail of very dangerous proportions. One might almost think, in terms of Syria, of a poisonous Molotov cocktail—a great cross-fertilisation of several developments, starting in 2011. The Arab spring-type uprising started the challenge to the Assad dictatorship and was followed by repression, civil war and challenge to the secular regime. This developed into, as we have heard so often in this debate, a sectarian, religious conflict, principally but not wholly between Sunni and Shia, exacerbating the Sunni-Shia tensions in the region as a whole. Take Bahrain, for example, where tensions were already very strong between the Shia and the Sunni; this conflict has exacerbated the tensions there.

Those who are historians will know better than me that, in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ottoman Empire and the Iranian Safavid Empire, one Sunni and the other Shia, fought each other for a long time and it had an extremely debilitating effect on both those areas, just as religious wars in Europe had done the same; for example, the Roman Catholic and Protestant feuds in Northern Ireland and so on.

On top of that, we have exploitation by proxy support, as we have heard today, with Russia and Iran, supported by Hezbollah, in favour of Assad—here, I pose a question: have we rather underestimated the determination of Russia and Iran to give their backing to Assad?—and, by contrast, Saudi Arabia and Qatar supporting the official, and not just the official, Syrian opposition.

Thus, as we have heard again so often today, Syria, with more than 100,000 deaths, is awash with arms. Goodness, we do not need to talk about arms in the Middle East; it is flooded with arms. There is the danger of fragmentation of that country and exploitation by extremist offshoots of al-Qaeda, producing in turn a massive humanitarian crisis, with more than 7 million people in desperate need, following from that to the destabilising of the neighbouring regimes, particularly Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon and Turkey.

Then, on top of that, there are the ambitions of the Iranian theocracy, which is flexing its muscles, trying to establish itself as a big power in the region and to have more influence—dreaming, perhaps, of former great Persian empires—and with very deep mistrust of the United States and the United Kingdom, developing nuclear capability as a symbol of its virility and seen, quite understandably, by Israel as a serious threat. That is balanced, however, by the one positive sign, which has been spoken about today: the election of Rouhani as president. He is, of course, a solid supporter of the Supreme Leader but, we hope, a little more flexible. Encouragingly, he said the other day:

“I have a key, not an axe”.

We have to live in hope.

Then we add to that, in the Middle East as a whole, the important Arab nations such as Egypt, which is struggling to find its way towards some kind of democracy, with serious tensions between the secular political leaders and the Muslim Brotherhood and with the army sitting in the background. Meanwhile, Palestine-Israel simmers and stagnates. There is no will or leadership on either side to find a solution. It is becoming more and more potentially explosive, with Palestinians failing to unite and Israelis settling on more Palestinian land, making the two-state solution more and more difficult.

To add one more issue in the region, there is a rapidly changing influence of outside powers. Obama is now understandably reluctant to get involved in any more Middle Eastern quagmires. The European Union is divided. The United Kingdom wants to punch above its weight against its gradual loss of weight. In Russia, there is a Putin who is under threat, flexing his muscles both metaphorically and actually, wanting to demonstrate Russia’s power and to protect its interests in Syria and its energy interests in the Mediterranean. Finally, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, put across so strongly, there is China, becoming more and more dependent on Middle Eastern oil and, therefore, more and more an important power in the Middle East.

In those circumstances, what should we be doing? We must start by accepting that we can play a role, but that it is more modest and selective than it has been in the past. Like almost every other speaker, I am not convinced that sending arms to the official Syrian opposition would do anything other than help to escalate the conflict and the fighting. I believe that there is no military solution whatever to this Syrian problem. Therefore, we should concentrate on one thing which I believe that the Government are doing extremely well, which is humanitarian support on a large scale. Secondly, where we can, with our allies, we should shore up and stabilise the neighbouring countries, especially Jordan and Lebanon. Thirdly, like others, I agree that we should give strong support to a political negotiation leading to a transition and what we hope will be an achievable and realistic post-conflict political resolution, learning, if we can, the lessons of Iraq and using all our skills in diplomacy and our experience.

We should engage fully and strongly with our friends in the Gulf, whom we will need, and we should engage if we can with Iran. We cannot ignore Iran. It has an important role to play in the Middle East; it is better that it should be constructive. I hope that Iran will take part in Geneva. Therefore, we should use our soft power and skills as well as possible to engage with Iran, as the Prime Minister is doing with Russia, and much more fully with China to try to find a way forward.

Finally, I agree with my noble friend Lord Hannay: we should do what we can to support Mr Kerry, the Secretary of State, in his efforts in Palestine and Israel to move towards a two-state solution and find a more secure future for the Palestinians and the Israelis. That is becoming all the more important because of the crisis in Syria. I take the view that we must play our part, draw on all our experience in the Middle East but be realistic about our post-imperial role in the region.