Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, no doubt many noble Lords will have read the claim in yesterday’s Times that weapon strikes against Syria following the chemical weapon incident on 21 August were legitimate—one of Thomas Aquinas’s conditions of a just war. The use of the word “war” seemed typical of a media-induced frenzy, on the back of which the Government appeared to be proposing that moral outrage justified unilateral military action, whatever the consequences. Thankfully, the measured introduction to today’s debate by the Leader of the House suggests that Mr Miliband has succeeded in introducing a degree of common sense into the situation, which appeared to be getting rapidly out of control, revved up by unsubstantiated assertions such as Mr Hague’s public statement that President Assad was responsible.

All this reminded me of my thoughts about the invasion of Iraq. In December 2002, I wrote to Mr Blair on behalf of a group that had met at the Royal United Services Institute to discuss non-military alternatives—those intermediate steps mentioned by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury—pointing out the damage that unjustified military action would do to the United Kingdom’s national interests by undermining the relationships that we had built up in the Middle East over many years, encouraging extremist Muslim organisations such as al-Qaeda to take retaliative action against the West in the West, and by causing us to be seen in the Muslim world as a warmonger rather than a peacemaker. Any international action should demonstrate a clear balance between long-term objectives and short-term gains, with regional issues paramount.

What particularly concerned the military members of the group was that this was the first time that we could recollect our Armed Forces being sent to war without feeling that the public was behind them, a point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, and my noble friend Lord Dannatt. Needless to say, we were not listened to, and in March 2003 I wrote in the London Review of Books that,

“perhaps our involvement in such a deliberate breach of international law will so change the world order that much wider rethinking will anyway be required”—

hence my concern about what our Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary seem to be proposing. What is its aim? What evidence is there about exactly what chemical agent was used, and by whom? What moral or other authority do we have that justifies taking unilateral action against one side in another country’s civil war before United Nations inspectors have completed their work?

The United States, and by implication its allies, ought to be very careful about claiming the moral high ground in the chemical weapons era. Although Syria remains one of the five countries that has not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, neither America nor Russia destroyed their declared stockpiles by the 29 April 2012 as required.

Do the Government not recognise the irony of us appearing to support al-Qaeda, which is so strongly represented in the so-called rebel forces? Finally, do the Government think that members of our Armed Forces are impervious to public opinion? Much as I deplore the use of chemical weapons by anyone, with the long-term consequences of our recent short-term interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan staring us in the face, I simply cannot imagine why the Government do not recognise that taking unilateral action is bound to inflame an already burning situation. In terms of national self-interest let alone common sense, I say yes to humanitarian and diplomatic assistance and a contribution to a legal, proportionate and considered international response, preferably under the auspices of the United Nations, but a resounding no to unilateral military action.