Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Lord Maginnis of Drumglass Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass]

My Lords, in deference to noble Lords’ patience after more than five hours of debate, I am not going to repeat what has been said by many who are more experienced than I. Hence, I want to look not exclusively at Syria but at the United Kingdom in relation to the current Syrian provocation. I would suggest that we as a nation have for the past 16 years become an abject follower rather than an incisive leader of world opinion. How sad. I do not believe that the United Kingdom can, from this point in history, take a military initiative that will benefit us or the various people in the Middle East, including Syrians, who are daily the victims of sectarian warfare and sectarian oppression.

We should not evaluate the situation in the Middle East on the basis of the United Kingdom’s Christian-based values—although, I suppose, this Government have largely abandoned those, too. Of course one deplores that there are several hundred victims of chemical weapons, and we have a responsibility to identify and cite before a war crimes court those who have ordered or executed these outrages. I heard a debate between the noble Lords, Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord Carlile, about the effectiveness of that. Citing leaders before a war crimes court would, from the moment we did so, cause the perpetrators and those who follow them to recognise that whatever they may achieve in the short term they have become internationally irrelevant and international pariahs until the day they die. Why do we imply that the hundreds who died as a result of the use of chemical weapons are any more to be regretted than the tens of thousands who have died equally horribly, up to this moment? Will we, however accurately we target whatever we identify as appropriate, add one iota of justice to the situation?

I have lived with sectarian conflict for many years. That was where religion was used as an excuse for terrorism. However much we may take so-called appropriate action in Syria, will it produce other than justification to those who regard religion as a cause—who are willing to become human bombs—whether in Iraq, Syria or here on the streets of London? I will not even venture into the capacity of Syria or Iran to attack our sovereign bases in Cyprus.

Moreover, we are in danger of deluding ourselves that if we can minimise deaths arising from our intervention and concentrate on Assad’s armaments Russia would not resupply? Russia will do so. We must know that the ineptitude of the United Nations as an arbitrating organisation would be even further neutralised by any direct provocation that led to a greater schism between the western powers, Russia and so on. Nor do we need provocation such as the preordained red lines, or was it lines in the sand? What a presidential own goal that was. I listened to President Obama this morning. He sounded so implausible that I cannot help but wonder why we British, with hundreds of years of diplomatic experience, appear almost blasé about tagging ourselves to his coattail. Let us just pause at this point and examine where we have failed and where we could have more effectively intervened diplomatically but failed to do so. I am not going to give the House a long list, but I think of Zimbabwe, where for years we virtually ignored the plight of the Matabeles; of Cyprus, where we have long and carelessly abdicated our guarantor responsibilities; and of Northern Ireland, where we subsidise ex-terrorist prisoners at seven times the rate that we compensate the victims of their terror. That is where our Government have failed for so many years now.

I conclude by expressing the hope that my contribution might just help bring a degree of reality to the questions we face. Perhaps at another time we can develop opportunities rather than, like today, trying to build justice on the sands of hopelessness that we would import from Washington.