Syria

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and support her views. I start by asking my noble friend: when will Her Majesty’s Government recognise the reality of the situation after six years of war? Assad, his Government and his people dominate all the cities, towns and most of the countryside. They are, of course, assisted by their long-term ally, Russia, and by Iran and Hezbollah, because they are Shia Muslims. Our Government have failed from the start to understand and recognise that this was, frankly, no more than the fourth Shia-Sunni war in that troubled country.

On top of this is the policy of the Arab spring, which we all know and recognise. In my judgment, the failure of that policy in Libya, Egypt, the Maldives and now Syria shows that we should never have interfered in the first place. Do Her Majesty’s Government recognise that France, our closest ally on so many issues, now has an embassy in Damascus? The information I have is that it is not just one man and a dog but a full technical support team. Is it ready for the rebuilding of Syria? From what I can see, we appear to be sitting on our hands, thinking of war crimes and worrying about what our allies in the Arab world would think of us. Are we going to go back to Damascus? If not, the whole of the United Kingdom’s Brexit approach in the Arab world will be somewhat undermined. If our policy is to deal with Daesh—my colleague on the other Benches clearly raised this issue—surely we have to have the Syrian armed forces alongside, at least working or communicating with us. Are we once again waiting for somebody to say something? Are we waiting for President Trump to give his views on what we should do? Surely we have enough experience of the Arab world to decide for ourselves.

We all know that peace is coming. We all know Assad is staying and, yes, we all want to see elections. Above all, we also want to see Syria rebuilt again. Frankly, Her Majesty’s Government should take the initiative and look for the equivalent of the Marshall plan, as in Europe after the Second World War. That way, we can bring back these poor refugees from the Middle East who are sitting in the cold and get them out of the camps and back into their own country. If we do not, Syria will be a living hell, just like Libya is today. Surely, we should let the Syrians themselves settle their own structure and we in the West should stop interfering, but we should give some generous aid in rebuilding and have that presence in Damascus—on the ground—so that at last, for once, our English and United Kingdom firms will also benefit from any Marshall plan equivalent.