North Africa and the Middle East

Richard Ottaway Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my predecessor as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Leaving aside his international adventures on behalf of the Labour party, I agree with everything that he said. I also pay tribute to the excellent speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames). No one has a better knowledge of the Arab world than he has. There was much power in what he said. I particularly agree with the important point that the EU has a role to play in this.

It was Comrade Lenin who said that revolution is unpredictable but when it comes it comes very quickly. I think that the speed with which everything has happened has caught us all very much on the wrong foot. With hindsight, we should have seen it coming after last year’s food riots in Egypt, brought about by unsustainable levels of population growth and the fact that 50% of its population is under 25. The other factor that combined with others to form the prefect storm is the role of the internet as the method of communication of those young people, which the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) referred to. The situation is fast-moving but has a long way to go. I watch with concern how things are developing in Bahrain and possibly in Saudi Arabia. I believe that things will get worse before they get better.

I support what the Prime Minister said in his statement on Monday: that we must encourage freedom, democracy and an open society in the Arab world. He said that against the background of the EU resolution calling for broader market access and political co-operation. These are desperately important factors, but there is a whiff of inconsistency here. We have lived with this situation since the second world war, and the reason we have turned a blind eye to much of this is that we want the energy resources of the region. I think that we should give those countries time to make the transition. In Britain, 300 years passed between the civil war and women getting the vote, so we should not be driven by the drumbeat of the 24/7 media. We should give those countries time to develop their reforms as they come naturally.

The major issue of the day, and the one I have been most concerned about for some weeks, is the no-fly zone. The Prime Minister set out three conditions that would have to be met before he would support a no-fly zone: regional support, a demonstrable need and a clear legal basis. With the resolution of the Arab League, there is clearly regional support. Demonstrable need is subjective. We have moved on from the slaughter of innocent women and children and now have a civil war in Libya. In truth, we will be taking sides, and the rebels are armed. I think that we have to look at the clear legal basis very carefully indeed, because we can see the mess that we got into in Iraq because of the uncertainty over whether there was a clear legal basis. What we need is clarification.

The need for a UN chapter VII resolution is crystal clear, but I would be surprised, and relieved, if we got it. Whether or not Russia or China will veto it remains to be seen. If we do get it, we can all row in behind the Government because we will have a clear legal basis. I wish them well in their efforts in the coming hours to achieve that.

[Mr Ellwood]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend’s very powerful speech. He mentioned the Prime Minister’s three conditions. I humbly urge caution, in the words used by the Arab League. It is an important symbolic gesture, bringing together a collective voice, but it has no power. The organisation is made up of Foreign Ministers who have no organisational power over many of the dictators to whom they report back. In making a statement and linking it to their respective Governments, they have as much power as the Foreign Affairs Committee has when it produces a report.

[Richard Ottaway]

In that case it has great force. Joking aside, my hon. Friend makes an important point, but we cannot ignore a resolution of the Arab League. It is indicative of the way things are shifting.

My concern is that we might get a legal basis that is not clear. If we do not get a chapter VII resolution, the fallback situation would be what is known in the UN as a responsibility to protect. It is not clear whether that is a part of international law. It suggests

“collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII”.

It sets as high a hurdle as a chapter VII resolution. We are yet to see how things will develop, but I would be rather surprised if we were to get that through. We would then be left with a legal basis that was not clear. If there is another doctrine, I would very much like to hear it.

Yesterday, the Government added a fourth condition: the national interest. In the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday I asked the Foreign Secretary how he would reply to a request from a country such as Ivory Coast, where genocide was going on, or Burma or Somalia—there are plenty of places with internal conflict. He replied that that has to be judged on a case-by-case basis, and that is under the national interest. If we intervene in Libya, will that set a precedent that will be relied on by those countries?

That means, in effect, that we are picking our countries. Let us be clear exactly what that means. It is a reincarnation of the Chicago doctrine introduced by Tony Blair 12 years ago. It is worth reading the speech that he made in April 2009 in Chicago, 10 years after his original speech in Chicago. He said that it

“argued strongly for an active and engaged foreign policy, not a reactive or isolationist one: better to intervene than to leave well alone. Be bold, adventurous even in what we can achieve.”

That is a pretty gung-ho approach. I am not saying that the current Government are being gung-ho, but it is a warning about how we could get carried away unless we sit back, are rational and address the need for a clear legal basis.

We then have the problem of what will happen if another Arab state behaves in the same way as Libya does. We have seen what is going on in Bahrain, with the state of emergency. We all heard reports on the radio this morning of protesters being killed. We cannot intervene in every case. We could end up with a very awkward situation where one Arab country provides aircraft to help police the no-fly zone and then ends up attacking its own people. Then what is our national interest?

I would add a fifth condition. If this does not succeed, we must have a strategy. There has to be a plan B. Where exactly is this leading? My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has great experience of the no-fly zone in Bosnia, and there was a no-fly zone in Iraq. In both cases, we had to put in ground troops to seal the deal and finish the job. A no-fly zone in Libya is most likely to end up with a stalemate in which the rebels cannot lose and Gaddafi cannot win.

[Mike Gapes]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept, however, that the ground troops did not go into Iraq in 1991 and 1992 and that for 11 or 12 years the no-fly zones, which protected the Shi’a marsh Arabs in the south and the Kurds in the north, were very effective in stopping Saddam using his air force to bomb them?

[Richard Ottaway]

I have heard the hon. Gentleman make that point before, and the answer to it is that Saddam Hussein remained in Baghdad. My point is that the policy under discussion would end in stalemate, too, with Colonel Gaddafi still in Tripoli, the rebels in Benghazi, a no-fly zone and a completely static situation.

If we want to get rid of Colonel Gaddafi, we will have to use ground troops, so I would like the Minister to answer the question, what is our commitment on ground troops? Would we be prepared to use them to finish the job? What is the Government’s attitude to the use of warships? The war is being conducted along a coastal strip. At the end of the day, if we commit to a no-fly zone, we have to be prepared to finish the job and to put troops in on the ground, otherwise we should not start. That is why I am concerned about where this is all leading. I do not think that we have the troops to put in on the ground, and that is why I come to the difficult conclusion that, without a UN resolution, we should not consider a no-fly zone.

The Prime Minister posed a question to people such as myself, who have their reservations about a no-fly zone, when he said on Monday:

“‘Do we want a situation where a failed pariah state festers on Europe’s southern border, potentially threatening our security, pushing people across the Mediterranean and creating a more dangerous and uncertain world for Britain and for all our allies as well as for the people of Libya?’”—[Official Report, 14 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 27.]

That is a very good question, and it deserves an answer. My answer is, we have had this pariah state for 42 years, and we have lived with it: we have put up with it; we had to bomb it once; we had Lockerbie; and we are still here and it is still there.

I do not want to see us get sucked into a war—a dispute—in the middle east. We need to tighten the noose as hard as we can, with the toughest sanctions possible, and if necessary we need to give all support, short of intervention, to the rebels. But we should not go down the road of arguing, campaigning or pushing for a no-fly zone without a UN resolution on either chapter VII or the responsibility to protect. There are huge risks politically and militarily without one, and I urge the Government to proceed with caution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I should like to touch briefly on matters relating to Libya, and then, as chairman of the all-party group on Tunisia, to refer to that country.

I wish to revert to the comments that I made to the Prime Minister following his statement to this House on Monday. In 1956, the Hungarians were led to believe by the United States that were there to be a revolution, the Americans would give them support. There was a revolution. I remember sitting in our kitchen as a 13-year-old, listening to a crackling valve radio, with a voice from Budapest screaming at us, “Help me, help me!” No help came. The US cavalry did not arrive, the Russian tanks rolled into Budapest, and the revolution was crushed. A decade later, almost the same thing happened in Czechoslovakia. Alexander Dubcek was removed, the west did not help, the Russian tanks moved in, and the revolution was crushed. I believe that unless the free world stops talking and starts acting within the next 48 hours, then as far as Libya is concerned, the Arab spring will be over, and that revolution, too, will be crushed.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister took a brave lead in calling for a no-fly zone, and he was derided by the British media for sabre-rattling. That, of course, is precisely the same courageous British media who are now complaining that the Americans are not backing a no-fly zone forcefully enough.

[Richard Ottaway]

Quite right.

[Mr Gale]

My hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, says “Quite right”, but his view is that we should not act because we should not walk to the drumbeat of the 24/7 media. I fear that we shall shortly be walking to the drumbeat of death if no action is taken.

The supply lines from Tripoli to Benghazi are long. It is a moot point as to whether Colonel Gaddafi’s regime can service troops entering Benghazi, so the logical progression is that he will use his war planes. I do not believe that Colonel Gaddafi will be remotely concerned about bombing and rocketing the women and children of Libya. Unless the free world moves to take out the planes on the runways, innocent women and children will die, and the revolution will end. This morning, I received a telephone call from rebels currently in London. They told me that they have three aircraft that they have used so far—sparingly, because they do not have the resources to back them up.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) has referred to the lunacy of UN Security Council resolution 1970, which imposes an arms embargo on an already very uneven playing field. Gaddafi’s regime has the weapons, the resources and the back-up; the rebels do not. At the very least, therefore, the free world has to allow the rebels the opportunity to obtain the equipment that they need to defend themselves. I do not believe that anybody can be held to account for allowing people to fight for what they believe to be right in their way and to defend their women and children. I can only repeat: failure to act will lead, within a very short time, to the end. What has been described as the defining moment will be a defining moment in the failure of democracy, and those who have failed to act will have the blood of the innocent on their hands. It may yet prove to be the defining moment of Mr Obama’s legacy.

Turning to Tunisia, the entire process began as a result not particularly of oppression, although of course that was a very relevant factor, but of unemployment. Very many bright, well-educated and well-qualified people in Tunisia found themselves unable to earn a living. We need to look carefully at what is happening in Tunisia and what will happen unless we give the Tunisians wholehearted support. There were some 400,000 jobs related to tourism in Tunisia prior to the revolution. That translates into a dependency on tourism of some 2 million people—two in 10 of the population. Hatem Atallah, the Tunisian ambassador, came to the House of Commons yesterday and told us that in the first three months of this year Tunisia’s tourism has effectively been halved. Of the 7 million visitors a year, 3 million came from Libya and related states, leaving 4 million from France, Germany and the United Kingdom. They need us to give them the support that will enable their businesses and commerce to survive. Without that, that revolution could also fail. The message is very clear: it is a 3,000-year-old civilisation, and it is open for business. We must have faith in that.

On 25 July, the elections will be held. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said, the campaign papers that trigger the entire process will be deposited at the end of this month or very early in April. That will lead to the opportunity for the creation of the election commission, the rules of the election, the electoral process, the electoral register, and the approval of that register. Tunisia has already extended an invitation to international election observers from the European Union to go to see fair play. I hope and believe that this country will particularly wish to send observers and to give the Tunisian interim Government every possible help to ensure that the election is successful.

I repeat: in Tunisia, democracy is absolutely dependent on economic success. Economic failure was the reason for the revolution, and it could cause the country to fail again. I urge the Minister in responding to the debate to state clearly that we are four-square behind that regime and what it is trying to achieve, and that it has our good will.

To conclude, the Tunisian Foreign Minister yesterday passed Members a letter in which he said:

“I strongly believe that our two countries have the opportunity to further strengthen their friendship and partnership, on the basis of common interests and common values.”

If the Arab spring is to survive and if those words are to mean anything, Tunisia deserves and must have our support.