Category: Written Articles

Syria The Times  30 May 2012

The slaughter of the innocents in Syria is, of course, horrific, barbaric, shocking, terrifying medieval, bestial — choose your own adjective; they’ve all been used – some many times over. In our attempts to camouflage impotence we are now devaluing hyperbole.

I do not complain about this. It is what we expect from our elected Western leaders. They have to represent populations who still remain, for all our diminished power, the world’s centre of righteous moral indignation — the natural habitat of the Something Must Be Done brigade, stretching (as it does these days) from the concerned public citizen, to Mr John Humphrys on the BBC’s Today programme.

None of this is wrong, none of it misplaced and none of it inappropriate. It is necessary to be outraged and concerned.

But it is not sufficient. With the West’s moral force in tatters after the blunders of Iraq and Afghanistan and military budgets so shrunk that we can no longer enforce our global morality at the point of a bayonet, we have to learn to be, not just concerned, but canny too if we are to get our way.

I thought we had learnt that lesson in Libya. But Syria suggests that we have not.

In Libya we in the West seemed to understand how the world had changed. Why the old glad confident days when we could, as in Iraq, treat the UN Security Council with cavalier disregard, were over (and a good thing too, some would say – though not I suspect in the beleaguered towns of Homs and Houla). That in future, international action meant a Security Council resolution, with all that entails for the enhanced power of Russian and Chinese vetoes. That the best way to avoid this was not for the West to front up the action, but to support and assist others (in Libya’s case the Arabs) to do so . The effect of making action in Libya an Arab call, not a Western one made it much more difficult for the Russians to say no — and in the end they didn’t.

Western diplomacy should have learnt lessons from this. First, that more than ever before, the crucial diplomatic battlefield is the UN Security Council. If you can’t make it happen there, you can’t make it happen.

Second, making it happen there is not always best served by the West out in front brandishing the sword of a morality and making demands for regime change which Russia and China can easily mis-represent as just a modern version of old imperialism.

Finally, we in the West should have learnt from Libya that to get things done means creating coalitions beyond the cosy circle of the Atlantic club.

Instead of building on those lessons we seem sadly, and stupidly, to have reverted to type in Syria. Instead of quietly standing back and letting the Arabs and the regional powers lead the call for action, Western leaders from Hilary Clinton through to newly arrived Président Francois Hollande, just could not resist donning the armour of moral outrage and leading the charge. Instead of making it more difficult for Russia to say “no”, they have made it easier. And overlooked the central role that Turkey could have played as a regional leader in putting together a coalition for action which the West could have found it easy to back and Russians much more difficult to oppose.

In today’s much more balanced “post-Western hegemony” world, we have to see intervention less as an event —like the invasion of Iraq — and much more as a process, like the one which led to the successes of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma.

Given the necessity of stopping Russia from using its veto, why on earth have Western leaders been shouting through megaphones about regime change? We know that Bashar Assad is just about the only friend Russia has left in the Middle East. Calling for him to go only helps them shelter behind the one scrap of clothing they have left to cover their dignity — that this is not driven by humanitarianism but by Western imperialism.

Of course any sensible person realises Assad must go. Gaddafi had to, too. But in Libya, we were careful not (quite) to say so. To demand Assad’s removal in lights is bad politics and clumsy diplomacy, not least with Kofi Annan’s mission on the ground trying to broker a cease-fire.

It now seems almost certain that the Annan mission is over. So the West should take a step back and leave space for a regional coalition, perhaps led by Turkey, to call for UNSC action. And what they propose should be framed initially, not around political actions, but exclusively around humanitarianism ones — the opening of a secure humanitarian corridor to Turkey perhaps, or the formation of a humanitarian relief mission to the besieged cities sanctioned by a UN Security Council Resolution and made up, not of Western nations but of Arab and regional ones.

A single mighty event that can bring a sudden end to tyranny, as in Bosnia, is now beyond us in Syria. But beginning a process driven by the region not the West that will take us there over time, is not.

The truth is that nowadays Western good intentions and deep concern are not sufficient. We have to learn to be canny too. And we haven’t been. The cowering innocents in Houla have been left to pay the price for a Security Council deadlock which, played differently, arguably may not have had to happen.

Post Syria debate The Times 31 August 2013

So what do we do now?

The short term answers are easy. The long term ones pose real challenges for our country.

Parliament has spoken and – who can doubt it – reflected the current mood of the British people. Thiers is the sovereign voice and it must be respected – and it will be. There are strange paradoxes here. It is possible to be both proud of a Parliament that said no to the Executive on a matter like military action. But sad; even – dare I say it – a little ashamed at the decision it took.

Of course there a reasons for this. The left over-poisons of the Iraq war; the toxic effect of public distrust in our politics. Mishandling by the Government. President Obama’s unwise attempt rush to action. A Labour Opposition who used their parliamentary duty to ask questions, as an excuse to avoid making decisions.

These are reasons why we are we are. But they are not excuses.

They do not diminish the damage done to our country’s standing in the world – or the effect this will have on how we face the problem of conflict in a naughty world. We have made it more difficult for Obama to act. Maybe even now, he won’t. Then Great Britain, which led in international law and engagement, will lead a retreat from these ideals, towards a new mood of growing isolationism.

Cut it how you will, the bottom line is this. Parliament was asked to join an international coalition led by a US Democrat President, whose aim, a firm response to a flagrant breach of international law, was supported by most European nations and many Middle Eastern ones. And Parliament said no.

The subtext, is perhaps as disturbing as the headline. The Parliamentary Division figures show the darker figures lurking below Labour’s clever strategising. The Government lost because of 30 Tories (and I regret 9 Liberal Democrats). Among the former, many if not most want Britain to leave Europe at any cost. So those who propose Britain’s splendid isolation from our European neighbours have now crucially diminished our standing with our closest Atlantic friends. Alone at last – God help us!

There is a dangerous mood of isolationism running in our country. George Osborne is right. As a nation we must make a clear decision whether this is the path we want, or not. Maybe I am just a hoary old voice from the past. Maybe Thursday is the start of a new Britain, as the Tory isolationist right, Labour’s pacifist left and some further flung voices claim.

If it is to be so, then let it be so because we have chosen it. Not sleep walked into it.

There are big questions here. Why then would we need the world’s fourth most expensive defence forces? As Parliament debated a UKIP poster van cruised outside with the slogan “Keep out of Syria! Oppose Defence cuts!”. Do they really not see the connection? Meanwhile inside the marshalled ranks of superannuated Generals and Admirals followed each other in orderly procession to warn us that action couldn’t mean taking risks. Churchill said if you bring a bunch of Generals together, all you get is the sum of their fears. Quite so.

And what, in this brave new world will Labour do? Having placed in question their proud tradition of internationalism for a convenient mix of genuine concern and political opportunism, will they now join the madding crowd rushing for the exit, or help lead the way back to saner ground? Labour’s answer to this question is of profound importance, not just to them, but to the whole future of progressive politics in our country. Criticise the Government as one may, we now know the convictions of Messrs Cameron and Clegg – the latter driven by a passionate internationalism. We cannot say the same for Mr Milliband.

Parliament on Thursday proved it would be no-ones poodle – good. But if it were now to lead a Gadarene rush towards isolationism, that would be very bad indeed.

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Syria The Independent 1 October 2015

Vladimir Putin is giving us a master class on the penalties of a foreign policy based only on high explosive.

We are picking up the tragic human costs of war in Syria, but are now almost powerless to stop the conflict, or influence it in any way. We may want Assad go, but cannot make it happen. We may want ISIL stopped, but two years of bombing have made little if any progress towards their defeat. We bluster in the UN, Washington and London about willing the ends, but we have nothing left but bombs to will the means. The levers to make things happen in Syria now lie in Moscow and Tehran – all we are left with is a bomb release button at thirty thousand feet.

This is a diplomatic failure of inglorious proportions. Historic proportions too, since the result will inevitably be another ratchet down in the West’s influence, already grievously diminished by our failures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

One would have thought that we would have learnt the lessons of those defeats. But, still – sadly – stupidly – when the West sees a problem in the world its first instinct is to bomb it.

There are four reasons why we have landed in this baleful position in Syria.

We have forgotten the dictum of Clausewitz – war is the continuation of diplomacy by other means. We always remember the war, but forget the diplomacy. As we now see in Syria, war only makes sense within a diplomatic strategy – and we didn’t have one. Post “shock and awe” we tried to create order in Iraq by purely military means, failing to engage the neighbours and refusing to address the burning coal at the heart of the Middle East conflagration – Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. And so we lost. We it again in Afghanistan, making enemies of the neighbours, instead of allies – and lost again. And in Libya we bombed our way to “victory” but forgot to create the regional coalition to bring order and reconstruction afterwards.

To choose only bombing again in Syria, without first getting Russia on board, was to invite folly being turned into humiliation. For Putin, with a military presence on the ground, could always up our ante and leave us looking foolish. Which he just has and we now do.

Our obsession with military options and blindness to diplomatic ones, also led to a myopic failure to see that what we were dealing with was not a conflict in Syria, but a growing Sunni/Shia war in which Syria was just a front line. The danger was that the West and Russia would be drawn into a regional conflict, us on the side of the Sunni and they on the side of the Shia – which is exactly where we have now ended up – with all its terrifying implications.

The great Foreign Secretaries, Canning and Castlereagh would have known what to do. They would immediately – I mean three years ago – have started building counterbalances with Tehran, Ankara and yes Moscow too (despite Ukraine). There would have been sacrifices of course – an earlier and perhaps less congenial deal with Tehran; an uncomfortable acceptance that, though we share no values with Russia we do share a common interest in Syrian peace and defeating Sunni jihadism too; a deal with Turkey would have been tough, because of Kurdish separatism. None of this would have been easy – but all of it could have led to an outcome where now, three years later we would have influence in what is happening in Syria, rather than just planes flying over it.

To choose as our first purpose in Syria, the removal of Assad was folly, since we had no means to make it happen. While Russia and Tehran backed Assad, bragging about removing him was never going to be more than empty words. If, as initially in Libya, we had made our aim, humanitarian rather than regime change, then success in the first would have led to the second – as with Gadhafi. If in the end, as now we would need Russian help, then demanding the removal of their only friend in the region, betrays clumsiness and lack of strategic foresight in equal measure.

Finally, the moment that ISIL moved into Syria we should have realised that our game was up. We could either (perhaps) get rid of ISIL or we could (perhaps) get rid of Assad, but we could not get rid of both simultaneously. We should have seen that choice two years ago instead of embarrassingly stumbling across it now. Then we could have had room for manoeuvre and perhaps a little leverage to extract concessions. Now, forced to choose with Russian fighters already in the air attacking ISIL, we have none.

So what next?

We are not the movers of events, we are being moved by them. Our options are limited. But there are, maybe, ways to wrest back some initiative. We should be holding Russia to account for Assad’s barrel bomb excesses. We will have, for the sake of our own face to leave Assad’s future hanging in a fog of diplomatic ambiguity. But we could and should move fast and purposefully to anchor Russian offers of help with ISIL within a wider formal coalition which brings in Tehran and Ankara. British aircraft joining the action over Syria as part of that wider coalition, might make better sense than it does now. In these more fluid diplomatic circumstances there could be a role for protection zones – or, perhaps most interestingly, for – not a no-fly-zone – but a no-bombing-zone.

For three years now the Syrian tragedy has remained stuck in a blood soaked quagmire, as thousands have died and hundreds of thousands have fled in terror. Things are perhaps moving in Syria – though this confers little credit and no comfort on the West. There are diplomatic opportunities now and humanitarian ones too. We should not compound three years of failure, by failing to seize the moment, even if it is not of our making.

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Syria Guardian 11 Oct 2015

On the face of it – and to the West’s excruciating embarrassment – Vladimir Putin s walking away with all the prizes in Syria.

Our aim was to bring stability to Syria, but he is doing it.

Our target was to remove Assad. But Putin has ensured he stays.

Our hope was to destroy ISIL. But he is the only one with the force on the ground to make it happen.

Our presumption was that the days of Russian power in the Middle East was over. But today Russia has more influence from the north-east corner of Mediterranean through to Iran than ever before.

None of this is due to Mr Putin’s genius. It is due to our follies.

It was folly for us to seek to remove Assad back in 2012 when it was not in our power to make it happen and wholly in Putin’s power to make sure it didn’t. It was folly to ignore the warnings three years ago that this was not about Syria, but about the beginnings of a religious conflict between Sunni and Shia, in which Russia and the West could be drawn in on opposing sides – which is precisely the danger which now so frighteningly confronts us. It was folly for us to choose as our key Arab allies, Saud Arabia and Qatr, who were actually funding the Jihadism we were trying to stop. It was folly, to choose as our main – indeed our only – instrument to achieve our aims, high explosive dropped from the air, when Russia, with force on the ground, could out bid us, whenever they chose to: as they just have.

We have presented Mr Putin with his openings on a plate and he has taken them with enthusiasm and panache.

I suspect there is little we can do now to either restrain him or influence what happens on the ground and I am not at all sure of the wisdom of even trying – at least in the short term.

But Russian triumphalism may be premature. Putin has his problems too. Recent Russian opinion polls show serious concern about being dragged into an Afghanistan-like quagmire. And justifiably so. AS we too know to our cost, it is easy to start these things – much more difficult to end them. What happens if, despite Russia acting as Assad’s air-force, he still loses, perhaps not in whole, but at least in part. ISIL in the east and centre of the country is not falling back – it is still advancing. Having started with expansive promises to defeat terrorism, he will soon come face to face that he may not be able to. No modern leader takes his “face” more seriously. The road to hellish interventions is paved with solemn promises about “limited engagements” – a phrase Putin has used more than once.

Then there is the cost of all this, against the backdrop of a floundering economy and Western sanctions – to say nothing of the real danger Putin now runs with increasing instability in the Caucasus Islamic republics.

No western leader will admit it of course, but our military strategy in Syria has failed. We need to switch tack – back to what we should have been doing three years ago – a policy in which diplomacy, not high explosive is the centre piece.

What Syria will need in the end is a treaty based Dayton style regional agreement, supported by the neighbours and the great powers, which will underpin the territorial integrity and stability of the country. We should be building on the new rapprochement with Tehran to draw them into the process . In the long run, I suspect that Tehran understands that they have more interest in building up the Western relationship, than in continuing to rely on an increasingly bankrupt and bellicose Russia.

If we left Putin to his bombing and outflanked him with diplomacy, we would probably achieve more than we can with yet more high explosive. And when in due course he has to find himself a way out, we can provide him with a ladder to climb down on.

None of this is to suggest (unfortunately) that we can take our aircraft out of the sky – that would be a humiliation too far. We have chosen our bed and for the moment we must endure its thorns, not least because to do otherwise would embolden Putin further. In fact, this is a moment when Western solidarity is the best means to restrain his adventurism and capability for miscalculation. There is no military purpose to be served by Britain adding our widow’s mite of explosive to the mountain already criss-crossing the increasingly crowded Syrian skies. But there might be a political purpose, if it conveys solidarity. NATO deploying of F-22 Raptors at Incirlik airbase in Turkey, would have the same effect.

What all this amounts to is a twin track strategy. Continuing with military action, while recognising that it will have little effect beyond illustrating to Mr Putin that there are limits to his room for manoeuvre. But shifting our main effort to regional diplomacy, where we can now best outflank him – and begin the task which we all know must be done on day – laying down the basis for the political solution without which, Syria and its tortured people, can never have peace.

Syria Sunday Telegraph 23 June 2013

Who would not weep at the sight of the innocents being slaughtered in the bloody Calvary of the Syrian war? Who would not wish for something to be done?

But what if the “something” makes things not better, but worse. That, in a phrase, is our conundrum in deciding what next in Syria.

President Obama has been noticeably coy about revealing what he has in mind when he says the US will now actively help the rebels. It would be foolish to condemn what he is going to do before we know what it is. Maybe what he has in mind is something whose emphasis is more on the humanitarian than the military. That would be interesting. But not easy. A safe haven for the innocents can quickly become a safe operating base for the fighters. A protected aid corridor can swiftly become a sure route for more arms and fighters. What do you do then?

But if what the US President (and the British Prime Minster?) are thinking of, here are four reasons why this would be a bad idea.

Firstly, huge amounts of arms are already flowing into the rebel areas. At the latest estimate 3,500 tons of arms have been secretly supplied by the Saudis and the Quataris, aided by the CIA. These figures have not been disputed by US sources and I know where they are coming from. They are the left over weapons of the Balkan wars and they are coming from the underground arms factories and warehouses in Bosnia. And I will bet they are making a huge amount of money for a lot of criminals.

Secondly I just do not believe that the Syrian rebels are fit and proper people to be supplying with out arms. They are divided, disorganised and, some at least as brutal, as casual about killing and as extremist as those they are fighting.

Thirdly, I cannot think of any time in history when providing more weapons produced more peace. That’s why I opposed the lifting of the Bosnian arms embargo even at the height of that war and I cannot find reasons to think things different now.

And finally – and perhaps most importantly – Syria itself is not the conflict – it is only a front line in a much wider conflict.

What we are seeing played out in Syria is just one corner of a broader attempt by the salafist and wahabist extremists to take over the Sunni community in preparation for the conflict that matters to them now more than attacking the Great Satan of the West, which is destroying the great heretic of Tehran and the Shia. This is what connects Syria with neighbouring Lebanon, with what is happening in Cairo, in Tunisia, in Libya and in far away Mali. They are all part of the same piece.

What we risk stumbling into now is a widening religious war in the Middle East in which we in the West are being instrumentalised on the side of the Sunnis and the Russians (who have their own problems with Sunni radicalisation of in their own Islamic Republics) are supporting the Shia. Is this really what we really want to help arm?

And by the way, this radicalisation of the Sunni is being funded in large measure by Qatar and the same Saudi rich business circles who funded Osama Bin Laden. We thought that too was fine at the time, because of course our enemy’s enemy is our friend. Right? No wrong. As we soon discovered when he became our deadly enemy too.

Some, and I fear Downing Street is among them, see this as we always like to do as a simple black and white issue of oppressed citizens and brutal dictatorship where the West should ride to the rescue. A sort of Bosnia for our time. It is nothing of the sort. It is much more complex and in many ways much, much more dangerous.

If there is one thing we COULD be doing in Syria it is diplomatic not military. Use the influence of the US and Europe to tell our “friends” in Qatar an Saudi Arabia to stop funding the jihadist radicalisation of the Sunnis throughout the middle and near east. Now that is something we could build common cause with the Russians about and for that reason it may be the best first step to finding our way out of this mess.

Syria The Times 26 August

Seventy-seven years ago the League of Nations, the UN’s predecessor, faced a crisis.

Italy, flagrantly breaching international law, invaded Abyssinia. The League failed to act because Germany and Japan effectively vetoed it. From that moment, the League ceased to exist as an effective institution and was put out of its misery in 1939. Prime Minister Baldwin told the Commons, the League “failed ultimately because of the reluctance of… nations… to proceed to… military sanctions”.

What has happened in Damascus is a challenge to our humanity. It is also a challenge to our system of international law.

If the international community will not now find the means to make it clear that we will not tolerate the use of weapons of mass destruction, like poison gas, for the mass murder of innocent citizens, then the fragile structures of international law that we have painfully erected these last twenty years will be undermined, and the threat of the future use of weapons of mass destruction will be widened.

So far, so easy to say.

But what to do?

The diplomatic things are easier – the military ones, as always, more difficult.

The first necessity is the truth. William Hague said last week that this was Assad’s work. No doubt he had solid reasons for that judgement. But that does not mean he was wise to voice it. Better to have followed President Obama and give time for the UN to give us the objective truth – or at least as much of it as possible – than state this as a western Leader’s opinion, however well founded.

The present task is to keep focussed on a single, simple aim from which we should not be distracted– get those inspectors in. The Russians seem to want this, too. So here is a Syrian something we can work on in common for a change. We should concentrate on this alone and allow nothing to get in the way – and certainly not the current pointless public sabre rattling. It’s good that Obama and Cameron have spoken. It’s good to prepare. But better to do it quietly, than noisily. This is a time for quiet voices and big sticks, not the other way round.

But here’s the rub.

The evidence of this crime is fragile and degrades fast. It may even be that the full truth is already beyond our reach. But that does not mean there is no truth to be extracted, even this late, from the aftermath of these horrors. We may have to be satisfied now with partial truths and uncertain judgements. But the more truths we have, objectively gathered and impartially stated through the UN, the stronger the basis for further action.

But what action?

Politicians should not play arm-chair Generals. Our job is to define what is needed, not decide the action.

Here what is needed is something proportionate, consistent with international law, closely defined and tightly targeted on the crime. So no, to no-fly zones – even if they were militarily possible. And no to arming the rebels too – even if that was wise (which by the way neither are). It means something sharp, quick, specific and punishing.

And preferably – strongly preferably – legitimised by a UN Security Council Resolution.

Here the west needs to understand the new limitations of its power. Some say this is getting to look like Bosnia after Srebrenica. Maybe in some ways it is – but in many more ways it isn’t. Syria is far, far more complex and with far greater geo-strategic consequences, than Bosnia ever had.

But even if it was like Bosnia, we, the West, are not like we were then. Iraq, Afghanistan and the economic crisis have robbed us of the moral credibility we had then and the military capabilities we had then. A Bosnia and Kosovo style intervention, however much some may itch for one, is not just unwise – it is beyond our means. And, incidentally, beyond the tolerance of our voting publics, too.

So today, we need to do the best we can to build the best common ground we can, with both Russia and China as permanent members of the Security Council. That will not be comfortable, or pleasant. But things will be easier where we succeed in this and harder where we don’t.

But what if, even in the face of damning truth from the UN inspectors- or enough of it for a damning conclusion – Russia and China still continue to veto appropriate sanction against this terrible international crime?

Then we are faced with two very unpalatable alternatives.

We can either acquiesce and so set the precedent that, even in the face of the most egregious breach, probably since the UN was founded, of that part of international law which protects the rights of citizens, no action will be taken if a great power wishes it so. In that case the UN and all it stands for will be hugely diminished as an effective organisation for the future.

Or we can take unilateral action ourselves. In which case the UN will be damaged, too.

Tough choice.

My instinct?

I would hate it, but on balance I judge the second to be preferable to the first. Action taken with the aim of underpinning international law, even if it in the end doesn’t, is better, it seems to me, than no action with the certain consequence of undermining it.

Look at what followed Abyssinia in 1936.

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