Category: Speeches

UK Foreign Policy after Trump

House of Lords debate on Foreign Affairs after President Trump

18 January 2017

I have been spending a lot of time recently researching the 1930s.

I am struck by the similarities between this suddenly turbulent and unpredictable age and those years.

  • Then as now, nationalism and protectionism were on the rise, democracy seemed to have failed;
  • people hungered for the government of strong men;
  • those who suffered most from economic pain felt alienated and turned towards simplistic solutions and strident voices;
  • public institutions, conventional politics, the old establishments were everywhere mistrusted and disbelieved;
  • compromise was out of fashion;
  • the centre collapsed in favour of the extremes;
  • the normal order of things didn’t function;
  • change – even revolution – was more appealing than the status quo
  • and “fake news” built around the effective lie, carried more weight in the public discourse than rational arguments and provable facts.
  • Painting a lie on the side of a bus and driving it round the country, would have seemed very normal in those days.

Perhaps the last time we stood as close to war as we stand now was at the height of the cold war.

But then, we had a comfort we do not have today.

Then, the Western liberal democracies stood together in defence of our interests and our shared values.

Now, under President Trump, the most powerful of our number thinks standing together,

is less important than going it alone;

abdication is preferable to international leadership;

collective action takes second place to America First.

Throughout the long years of the American century, we have taken great comfort in the fact that our alliance with the United States and its Presidents has been built not just on shared interests, but also on shared values.

Today we have to face the wrenching reality that this US President does not share our values – as his recent racist comments have so shockingly illustrated.

The liberal principles that have underpinned every civilised society, every peaceful age and every prosperous society are under attack as never before.

But President Trump appears more aligned with those forces ranged against liberal values than those seeking to defend them.

Throughout the long years of the American century we have taken comfort in the fact that the “Leader of the Western world”, while flawed like the rest of us, was well informed, judicious and cautious about going to war.

Now we have an American President who is ignorant, unpredictable, foolhardy and reckless.

(Bang goes my invitation to the Sate Dinner…)

This is frightening stuff for those who, like me, place their faith in the Atlantic Alliance.

So what do we do about it?

The answer is, grin and bear it in the hope that the US will find its way back to sanity.

After all, we in Britain are not entirely free of this kind of lurch into stupidity, just at the moment.

When the battle between the America we know and Donald Trump ends, only one side will remain standing. Either Donald Trump will destroy American democracy, as we know it. Or American democracy will destroy Donald Trump.

Personally my money is still on the American democracy.

But even if, on both sides of the Atlantic, we can find our way back to saner and safer ground, is there something deeper going on here?

The slow divergence of interest between Europe and the US does not date from President Trump’s election, although this has accelerated the process.

Even under President Obama the US gaze was looking more west across the Pacific than east across the Atlantic.

NATO and the Atlantic axis will remain Europe’s most important alliance for as far ahead as we can see.

But it will not be the same Alliance as it has been for the last 50 years. To remain strong the Atlantic relationship will have to look far more like J.F. Kennedy’s 1962 vision of a twin pillar NATO, than the present conjunction of a giant on one side and 21 pygmies on the other.

We will need a NATO which is mature enough to cope with areas where our interests do not elide –we should not be shy for example of calling out Israel for its illegal occupations, just because Washington doesn’t. Or of strenuously supporting the Iran nuclear deal, just because Mr Trump wants to pull the plug.

The United Sates will remain the world’s most powerful nation for the next decade or more.

But the context in which she holds her power has changed. The American century was one of the few periods in history when the world was mono-polar and dominated by a single colossus.

When all compasses had to point to Washington to define their positions, for or against.

Now we are moving into a multi-polar world – more like Europe in the nineteenth century than the last decades of the twentieth.

A foreign policy for the next fifty years based on what we have done for the last fifty, will be a foreign policy clumsily out of tune with the times. Which is exactly where we currently are. Everything has changed in the world, except Britain’s policies towards it.

British foreign policy in the post Trump era will need to be much more flexible, much more subtle, much more capable of building relationships on shared interests – even with those outside the Atlantic club – and even with whom we do not share values – than the simplicities of the last decades where we only needed to snuggle close to our friendly neighbourhood super power to be safe.

In a world dominated by a single superpower, might is the determiner of outcomes, not diplomacy. Our present foreign policy is dominated, not by diplomacy, but by high explosive. See a problem in the world, drop a bomb on it. The string of Western defeats; Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and most humiliating of all Syria should tell us that this age is over.

We have lost contact with the truth of Clausewitz, that war is an extension of diplomacy by other means. We have remembered the war but forgotten the diplomacy – and so we have failed.

In an age where building alliances, will protect and enhance Britain’s interests, better than using military capacity alone, high explosive will be less useful to us than diplomacy.

To be diminishing our diplomatic capacity, as we are currently doing, is folly of a very high order.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the current slide towards isolationism, is that, in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world, the only solutions to our problems are multinational ones.

Climate change, trade imbalance, resource depletion, population growth, nuclear proliferation, over-population, poverty, migration, suppressing conflict – these are the greatest problems we face – and not one can be solved by nations acting alone.

As a medium sized nation with global reach but diminishing weight, it is in our interests to see a rule based world order, rather than one shaped by might. So actively pursuing the strengthening of multilateral institutions, should be a cardinal principle of a sensible British foreign policy,

Lastly we have to deal with the consequences of our own folly.

I make no secret of it.

We Lib Dems seek to reverse Brexit, which has already resulted in a catastrophic shrinkage of our ability to protect our interests abroad.

I reject the notion that, in seeking to reverse Brexit we are acting either undemocratically or unpatriotically. Any more than, for instance, the noble Lord Lord Forsyth, who I know to be both a democrat and a patriot, was offending either principle by seeking to change the country’s mind after the 1975 referendum.

But one thing is certain – in the EU or out, our foreign policy must continue to place its first emphasis on working intimately with our European neighbours. Because that is the best – indeed the only way – to pursue our nation’s interests in a dangerous, volatile and turbulent age.

It is too little recognised just how much the terms of our existence as Europeans have changed these last two decades.

Europe now faces an isolationist US President to our west, the most aggressive Russian President of recent times to our east and all around us, economic powers growing up, some already stronger than any single European nation.

The right reaction to this new context, is not to allow ourselves to broken up and scattered, but to deepen European co-operation and co-ordination.

So, inside the single market and customs union, or out – inside the EU or separated from it – our only sensible foreign policy is to proceed in lock step with our European neighbours.

I can put it no better than the Government’s own paper on post-Brexit foreign policy. Britain’s future relationship with the EU should be – and I quote – : “unprecedented in its breadth, taking in cooperation on foreign policy, defence and security, and development.”

Precisely My Lords.

The question we debate today is, does the Government mean it, or will the country’s interests once again be hi-jacked by the anti-European prejudices of the Tory Party?

My Lords, I beg to move.

China Speech 28 November 2017

China Speech

Foreign Correspondents Club, Hong Kong

28 November 2017

Peace in the Pacific Region, and very probably the wider world, will depend on two questions.

How will the United States cope with decline?

And how will China fulfil her potential as a super power.

Not long after I returned from Bosnia in 2006, in the middle of the era of small wars, I was asked if great wars were now a thing of the past. I replied no; unhappily the habit of war, large and small, seems inextricably locked into the human gene. But I did not believe that, once we were passed the fossil fuel era, the most likely place for a great conflagration would be the Middle East. If we wanted to see where future great wars might occur, we should look to those regions where mercantilism was leading to an increase in nationalist sentiment and imperialist attitudes, as it did in Europe in the nineteenth century. The only region in the world, I concluded, which matched this description, was the Pacific basin. Nothing I have seen in the intervening decade alters this judgement.

We live in one of those periods of history where the structures of power in the world shift. These are almost always turbulent times and all too often, conflict ridden ones too. How new powers rise and old powers fall, is one of the prime determinants of peace in times like this. The Pacific basin is about to be the cockpit in which this drama is about to be played out

The United States is the most powerful nation on earth and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. But the context in which she holds that power is completely different from what it was. Over the last hundred years or so – the American century – we have lived in a mono-polar world dominated by the American Colossus. This is no longer true. We live now in a multi polar-world – by the way very similar to Nineteenth century Europe where balance among the five powers – the so called Concert of Europe – meant peace and imbalance meant war.

We have seen this before. The end of the European empires after the Second World war led to great instability and much conflict, not least in this region. Britain, by and large, accepted her decline and, mostly, dealt with it in a measured and civilised fashion. We will come onto what that means for Hong Kong in a moment. France, by contrast lashed about soaking first Indo China and then North Africa in blood. The Belgians were even worse in the Belgian Congo.

How the United States copes with her relative decline from the world’s only super power, to primus inter pares in a multi-polar world, is one of the great questions which will decide what happens in this region in the next decade. President Obama seemed to understand this. President Trump, it seems does not. His policies of isolationism, protectionism and confrontation towards China are foolish and dangerous. It is foolish because he is abandoning American leadership of the multilateral space and that will not strengthen America as he suggests, but hasten her decline. Its is dangerous because US isolationism will weaken multilateral instruments which are the only means of resolving conflicts and tackling global problems, such as climate change.

China’s position as a mercantile super-power is already established. It was inevitable that she should now seek to consolidate her trading strength by becoming a political and military super power, too. This is a perfectly natural ambition. It’s the way super powers behave – indeed it’s the way they have to behave to protect their position. This therefore, should not, in and of itself, be a matter of alarm or criticism.

It is natural too – and good – that China should seek to fill the vacuum of leadership in regional and global multilateral institutions left by President Trumps’ retreat from this space. It is far better for us all to have an engaged China, than an isolated one.

The last great strategic opportunity faced by the West was the fall of the Soviet Union. We should then have reached out to engage Russia, to draw her in, to help her re-build and reform. Instead we foolishly treated Moscow with triumphalism and humiliation, orchestrated largely by Washington. The result was inevitable and he’s called Vladimir Vladimirovic Putin.

We are now faced with a second equivalent opportunity. Can we reach out to build constructive relationships with a rising China?

On the face of it, the signs have been hopeful.

China has seemed keen to be a good world citizen. She has engaged constructively in multilateral institutions – look at the WTO as an example; look at her support for the UN Security Council resolution on sanctions for North Korea; look at her engagement with international forces to tackle the scourge of the Somali pirates around the Horn of Africa; look at her participation in international disaster relief – for instance in north east Pakistan; look at her involvement with UN peace keeping to which she has committed more troops under multi-national command than the United States and Europe combined. Yes, they are mostly in Africa where she has good reasons to want to keep the peace. But there is nothing new in that. Western nations too only send troops to keep the peace, where it is in their interests to do so.

Almost all the signs we have seen over the last two decades seem to indicate that China sees it as in her mercantilist interest to have a more rule based world order – and that is something we in the West should agree with too. It looks as though there could be much which is constructive to work on here.

Domestically too, the movement in China seemed to be in a hopeful direction. The Deng Hsiao Ping initiated process of economic liberalisation has been awe inspiring to watch. Many of us have taken comfort in what we saw as the inevitable fact that economic liberalisation must over time, lead to political liberalisation too. Anyone who understands China and Chinese history understands why this could not be too hasty; understands why Beijing is nervous about loosening the bonds too quickly. But the direction of travel seemed clear. After modernising her economy China would, over time modernise her political and governmental structures in favour of greater democracy – albeit democracy with a Chinese face, rather than a western one.

It was comfortable for those who observe and have an affection for China to believe that in a world almost overwhelmed by conflict, fracture and repression, China would continue steadily moving in the opposite direction; steadily using her power for stability against turbulence and for partnership, rather than raw power and going it alone. We even imagined that, in her ascent to greatness China might chose a trajectory different from that followed by previous super-powers; using her strength to lead internationally rather than succumbing to imperialist temptation.

I do not think China’s true long term interest lies in responding to Donald Trump’s invitation to a dog fight, albeit one which appears to have been postponed after Mr Trump’s effusive glad handing with Chairman XI. China’s interest lies, rather in continuing to build her reputation as a good world citizen and in creating alliances – leading them if you like – in favour of the kind of rule based world which would benefit  both her and us.

Does this sound naive? A little I confess. Yet it remains probably the only hope for avoiding what will otherwise I fear be an inevitable long term progress towards some kind of Pacific confrontation between a declining old power and a rising new one.

Naïve or not, if these were our hopes they have now come up against a jolting reality.

Judging from the iconography of the recent People’s Congress it is difficult not to conclude that what we were looking at was less the emergence of a new China, as the return of the old. A Red Emperor, centralised power, suppression of dissent. These were all – perhaps – necessary for Mao Tse Tung, who had to build a unified state from ashes and a nation which was respected abroad after a century of humiliation.

But the respect in which China is held abroad is not in question today. Nor is her unity and strength. To return to the ways of Mao sits uncomfortably with China’s ambition to be a modern state and can only serve to diminish her reputation abroad.

As for unity, well I know of no instance in history where the sustainable greatness of a nation has been built on a market that is free and a public voice which is suppressed. It is just not in human nature, whether Chinese or otherwise, to be content for long with glorious freedom in one aspect of your life and permanent voicelessness in the other. It is sad – more it is worrying – to note the recent rise in the curtailment of freedoms in the name of national security; the arrest of foreign NGO workers for expressing unwelcome views, the rising number of detentions of human rights activists, including even lawyers.

All this sits very strangely with promises to develop “advanced, extensive, multi-level… institutionalised … consultative democracy” and enhance China’s “soft power”, in the 3,000 word amendment incorporating Xi Jin Ping’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, which was unanimously passed at the recent Congress

I do not believe that the Chinese people yearn for individual freedom and human rights any less than anyone else.

A state whose economy pioneers the future, but whose politics has reverted to the past, is a state founded on an irresolvable contradiction.

Maybe I have read the signals wrong. Foreigners, even those who have studied China for a long time, can easily do that. The proof of the pudding will come in the eating, as we say in English.

And the first slices of that pudding will be eaten – maybe have already been eaten – here in Hong Kong.

It is here, perhaps more than anywhere else, where we will come to know the true nature of Hsi Jin Ping’s vision of “Socialism with a Chinese face”.

At this stage I must do a little mea culpa.

When Beijing says there is a degree of hypocrisy beneath British calls for more democracy in Hong Kong, they are right. Our hundred and more years of rule of Hong Kong as a colony was not notable for its democratic reforms. Learning Chinese here between 1967 and 1970 – a time of considerable public disturbance and bomb attacks, as some will remember – I did not find it easy to defend the British Administration here, let alone be proud of it. Of course we know now that Chou en Lai threatened to re-possess the Colony by force if Britain introduced universal suffrage. Is it unworthy to think that this Beijing “prohibition” on full democracy was not very inconvenient to a British administration which didn’t have much enthusiasm for such things anyway? It would have been possible, even within the constraints set by Chou, for the British to at least to set a direction of travel for Hong Kong by taking small steps towards democracy, even if they couldn’t take big ones. Is it fanciful to suggest that if they had done this, the democratic culture in Hong Kong would have had time to develop into something deeper, more embedded and more mature?

British rule in Hong Kong was economically successful. But politically it was shameful. Chris Patten tried to ensure that the last page of the history book covering British rule in Hong Kong would be different, so that the legacy we left would be truer to our values, than the record of our administration of the colony. Is there hypocrisy in that? yes – some. But to do the right thing in the end, is better than not to do it at all. As Rousseau said “Hypocrasie est le hommage que la vice rend a la virtue” – hypocrisy is the service that vice gives to virtue.

Whatever the motives however, the fact is that the Patten democratic reforms were locked into the Anglo-Chinese International Treaty which enables and protects the Basic Law.

And the heart of that Basic law, is the rule of law itself.

The Hong Kong judiciary is still intact and still independent. But it is coming under pressure. Justice must not only be done, it must also, to gain confidence among the people, to be seen to be done.

The abduction of Hong Kong booksellers into the mainland, simply for having published books critical of China’s leaders, undermines confidence both in the rule of law and in the principle of free speech.

The right to protest within defined limits is part of that law. The right to due process by a judicial system independent of political interference is part of it too. The right to be free from the hazard of double jeopardy if you choose to break the law is widely regarded as a fundamental principle of justice world-wide.

Of course it is the case that those who break the law should be judged. Though whether it was wise for the full might and majesty of a global super-power to come down on three young enthusiastic student demonstrators, one of whom a directly elected legislator who may have overstepped the limit, is a different matter.

But even the judged have rights and these must be protected too.

The effective, just, wise and legal administration of Hong Kong is not an easy matter for Beijing to deal with. One country two systems is far easier to have as a slogan, than it is to put into practice. We should appreciate that.

Nevertheless this is what Beijing has, formally – and by international treaty – put its hand to.

One country two systems is the slogan under which Beijing may want to draw others back to the fold. Honouring scrupulously the Anglo-Chinese deal in both letter and spirit will enhance that possibility. Any perceived failure to do so, will weaken it

Britain, too laid its hand to that treaty. And with some fanfare.

At the time, Prime Minster John Major undertook that “If there were any suggestion of a breach of the Joint Declaration, we would have a duty to pursue every legal and other avenue available to us.” In words which would have reminded every Hong Konger of the famous declaration of President Kennedy that he would always stand by the endangered city of Berlin the British Prime Minister promised that Hong Kong  “will never have to walk alone”. This is not a promise that can be lightly broken because it proves inconvenient to a British Government obsessed with finding trade deals because it wishes to be outside Europe. As Chris Patten has said, Britain risks selling its honour here.

The new mood places new responsibilities on the SAR government, too. If things are to move in a more regressive direction on the mainland then SAR government has an even greater duty to show that it will stand up and defend Hong Kong’s special status and its core values; that it will be an effective voice-piece for your genuine concerns, for example over the co-location of the high-speed rail link.

What happens next here in Hong Kong will be judged by a watching world.

For it will tell us whether the rise and rise of Xi Jin Ping is taking us forwards to a new more modern China, or back to an old one.

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Middle East Monitor Conference – Sunni/Shia 18 November 2017

Middle East Monitor

“Crisis in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia’s Attempts at Realignment”

183 Euston Road, Bloomsbury, NW1 2BE

18 November – 1015

Key Note speech by Paddy Ashdown

In foreign affairs, having a flawed model for viewing the world is nearly always the prelude to having flawed policies which end in failure.

The West cannot shake itself from the view that we still rule the world as we have done these last 400 years – since days of the Ottoman Empire. So we think everything that happens in the world is about us, the things that are important in the world are only important because they affect us and that anywhere there is a problem in the world, we can solve it.

There used to be an Arabic saying: “If a dog barks in the Middle East, British intelligence is behind it”. This is how it was and this is how, replacing British with American of course, we in the West think it still is.

But it isn’t. There were many, many casualties in the wars of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. One of them was the myth of Western omnipotence and the utility of having a West centric view of all that happens in the world.

For four years now – perhaps a bit longer – many of us have been warning that the greatest threat to world peace coming out of the Middle East, was not jihadist terrorism, but the danger of a wider Sunni-Shia religious conflict, similar the Wars of Religion which engulfed Europe in the 17th century. And that the terrorist insurgencies in Iraq, Syria, Mali, Yemen, Lebanon and the wider world of Islam should not been seen as individual conflicts, but as part of and preludes to, this larger confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The radicalisation of the “Sunni Umma” promoted, assisted and funded by Saud Arabian and Gulf elements, if not specifically by their Governments, is not any longer targeted on us in the West as we liked to believe. Its real target is, no longer the Great Satan in Washington, but the Great Heretic in Tehran. Attacks on Washington, London and Madrid are merely a proxy to help win support for that wider conflict.

I know it is hurtful to Western pride to think that these attacks on our cities were mere collateral damage. It is difficult for us to accept that we are not the main event here, only the hors d’oeuvre. But that is how it is.

Of course this is not to diminish the threat to us here in London – or to suggest that we should not have been taking this seriously. Terrorism in the name of radical Islam is a real and present threat. Collateral casualties, are no less casualties. As the innocents of Yemen, Iraq and Syria know so miserably well. The casualties of the bomb outrages in Western cities and the dead from the indiscriminate bombing of crowded suburbs in Sanaa are victims of the same event – the struggle between Sunni and Shia which now stands on the edge of open conflict.

A word about the role of religion in these kind conflicts. Of course I do not in any way doubt the sincerity of those who feel deeply – even violently – about the differences between the two great branches of Islam. I have personal experience of those kind of hates in Northern Ireland and in Bosnia. These sentiments may be odious, but amongst most ordinary people they are sincerely felt. My quarrel lies less with the misguided individuals who feel driven to be the actors in these tragedies, than with those behind them who use religion to drive the conflict. The reality is that in almost all great so-called religious conflicts, what lies behind the shouting of the clerics is a contest between the power of nations.

It was surely obvious to any sharp eyed observer with any knowledge of the Middle East that the moment that matters in the region ceased to be determined in the capitals of the great western powers, a contest for who was up and who was down would ensue.

And that contest was likely to be between Riyadh and Tehran – and the vehicle, motivator and driver for that contest would be religion; just as it was in Europe in the 17th century, just as it has been in so many conflicts that I have been involved in – from Far East, to Northern Ireland, to Bosnia.

This particular contest of power has been a long time coming. It has been building up strength, followers and causes through the proxy wars in Iraq and Syria, the proxy insurgencies in Mali, Libya and Yemen and the proxy terrorist outrages in major Western capitals. Left unchecked, as it has been, there was always going to be a moment when this would turn from something behind the scenes and below the surface, to something open and right in front of us.

The sudden seriousness with which Washington has woken up to what has happened recently in Lebanon, having been completely asleep to what was happening in Yemen, seems to indicate that that moment is very near.

So why should this bother us in Britain? Haven’t we got enough on our plate fighting our own war with the EU? Is this not just another far away country of which we know little, to adapt Chamberlain’s infamous phrase.

No it is not – it is definitely not.

A regional proxy conflict between Riyadh and Tehran, fired up by religious contention, is already sowing little wars around the region. If this finally breaks out into something which directly engages the two contesting capitals then I think we would see a threat to the wider peace of at least the same magnitude as the tensions surrounding North Korea, especially if, as seems almost certain, Israel becomes involved.

Mao Tse Tung famously called the two great World Wars of the last century “The European Civil Wars”.

It is not an inaccurate or inappropriate description.

For it reminds us that, in our deeply interconnected world, regional conflicts can have global consequences.

Three years ago I suggested that the right way to view the conflicts in Syria and Iraq were through the Sunni/Shia prism.

That the wars in Syria and Iraq could neither be solved nor ended by high explosive alone.

That what we needed was a Dayton style International Treaty safeguarding existing borders.

That this should involve regional players across the Sunni/Shai divide and be underpinned by Russia, the US and Europe acting as guarantor powers.

That Russia had too much interest in the area because of Sunni radicalism in their own Islamic republics, not to join a wider coalition to destroy ISIL

That if this did not happen, they would, inevitably and unilaterally, join Tehran and suppress with bombs what they did not have the opportunity to contain with diplomacy.

That what would follow would be a deepening of local conflicts and a heightening of Riyadh/ Tehran tensions

That the West would get dragged in to support one side – and Russia would get dragged in to support the other.

And that this would in the end fire-up a regional conflict in the Middle East which would have global consequences

It gives me no pleasure to say that this is exactly what has now happened.

We are very close now to a Sunni/Shia conflict with great power involvement on opposite sides.

If that does not strike a shiver down your back-bone, then you have not spent enough time studying history.

A lesson I learnt in both Northern Ireland and Bosnia is that even though it is necessary to constantly press for peace, peace cannot be achieved until the warring parties are willing and the right external conditions are in place. The right context – maybe the only context for a sustainable peace in Yemen, Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East, is some kind of accommodation between Riyadh and Tehran.

I do not know whether, this late in the game, this is any longer possible.

I do not know, whether having been so deeply invested on the ground for so long, President Putin would see it any longer in his interest to play a constructive role in the process.

I do not know whether President Trump, whose seems incapable of resisting any opportunity for a dog-fight, has the strategic vision to see that this kind of diplomatic engagement is in Washington’s interest.

I do not know whether Brussels, now so internally obsessed with its own problems, is able to expend energy and political will on anything else.

But I am pretty certain that, absent this kind of vision and engagement, what has been these last two decades an extremely turbulent Middle East, could, if the Sunni Shia contest continues, quickly become something even more dangerous – something which Mao Tse Tong would have recognised very well – a regional conflict which would threaten the wider peace.

There is much about the piles of tinder scattered around the Middle East today which remind me of the Balkans in 1914.

So what should the policies of the western nations be to the impending danger?

If it is the case that the greatest danger to world peace coming out of the Middle East at present is not jihadist terrorism, but an open regional war between the imperial ambitions of Saud Arabia and Iran, then the right policy for the western nations is scrupulously not to take sides.

We should have good and normal relations with countries across the divide and treat them exactly the same.

If they sponsor terrorism we should strongly oppose their policies by all means possible, rather than turn a blind eye for short term convenience.

If they are engaged in proxy conflicts we should not throw fuel onto the fire by supporting one side against, above all with weapons.

If they commit war crimes we should condemn this even handedly.

We should strive by every means possible to encourage dialogue and agreement and take care to take no steps which will deepen the divide between both sides.

We should above all avoid any step which propels events further down the track we are already far advanced on, where the West supports one side – the Sunnis – encouraging Russia to take up arms in support of the other – the Shias. This is the outcome of greatest danger and we are very, very close to it.

So now we come to Britain and Saudi Arabia, especially in the context of the rolling tragedy of Yemen.

From a moral point of view Britain’s support of Saudi Arabia’s actions in Yemen is as foolish as it is reprehensible.

It is very clear that war crimes have been committed in the conflict in Yemen, both in relation to indiscriminate attacks on civilians and by using aid and starvation as a weapon of war. Britain’s silence on these matters is thunderous and shaming.

The fact that we are supplying arms to Saudi Arabia is even more so.

The Government tells us that no weapons supplied by Britain have been used in this war. As someone who knows a little about the temptations and confusions of war, I simply do not believe this.

The Government should announce an immediate suspension of arms sales to Riyadh until their blockade of aid supplies is lifted and their indiscriminate bombing of civilians is ended.

I know enough of these kind of conflicts to understand that crimes are likely to be being committed by both sides in these kind of dirty wars. I am sure that it is true, for instance the Houthi rebels in Yemen, are also guilty of using aid and hunger as a weapon of war.

But the difference is that we do not support them, whereas Riyadh is an ally and one to whom we supply weapons of war.

I am not so naïve as not to understand the other factors involved here. Trade at a time when, thanks to the folly of Brexit we have a desperate urgency to grow our foreign trade quickly. Assistance in the struggle against terror, which far too often causes us to turn a convenient blind eye to human rights abuses in those countries which are our allies. Maintaining a balance in the Middle east broadly favourable to the west. The threat of the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region.

I doubt whether bending our principles in favour of short-term advantage on all of these fronts will deliver anything of use to us in the long term.

But even if it were to do so, such hopeful outcomes, if and when they arrive would have long ago been blotted out by the horrors of a widening religious war into which the great powers of our day allow themselves to be dragged in support of one side or another.

That is the danger that now confronts us and it is time that the world’s statesmen and women alerted themselves to it.

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The Sunni-Shia danger toward peace

Yemen

Article by Paddy Ashdown

Independent Friday 17 November

Based on a speech to be delivered for Middle East Monitor Conference 1015 18 November

They used to say in the Middle East: “If a dog barks in the Middle East, British intelligence is behind it”. Replace the word “British” with “American”, and we think that’s still true.

But it isn’t. There were many casualties in the wars of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. One of them was the myth of Western omnipotence.

The greatest threat to world peace coming out of the Middle East now, is not, as we think, terrorism, but the danger of a wider Sunni-Shia religious conflict into which the great powers are dragged.

The radicalisation of Sunni Islam, funded from Saud Arabian and the Gulf is not any longer targeted on us in the West. Its real target is not the Great Satan in Washington, but the Great Heretic in Tehran.

The terrorist attacks on our cities are not the real war, but collateral damage in a wider conflict.

This is not to diminish the threat to us here in London – or to suggest that we should not have been taking this seriously. The collateral dead, are no less dead- as the innocents of Yemen, Iraq and Syria know so miserably well.

The casualties of the bomb outrages in Western cities and the maimed and injured from the indiscriminate bombing of crowded Sanaa suburbs are victims of the same war – the struggle between Sunni and Shia which now stands on the edge of open conflict.

This is not really about religion, any more than the wars of religion of the 17th century, or the conflict in Northern Ireland, or the bloodshed in Bosnia were. In almost all great so-called religious conflicts, what lies behind the shouting of the clerics is a contest between the power of nations.

This one is, in reality, a contest for dominance in the Middle East between Riyadh and Tehran.

And its been a long time coming. It has been building up strength, followers and causes through the proxy wars in Iraq and Syria, the proxy insurgencies in Mali, Libya and Yemen and the proxy terrorist outrages in major Western capitals.

So why should this bother Britain? Haven’t we got enough on our plate fighting our own war with the EU? Is this not just another far away country of which we know little, to adapt Chamberlain’s infamous phrase?

No, it is definitely not.

A regional conflict between Riyadh and Tehran, fired up by religious contention and supported by Russia on one side and the West of the other poses a threat to world peace at least as great as North Korea, especially if, as seems almost certain, Israel becomes involved.

Mao Tse Tung famously called the two great World Wars of the last century “The European Civil Wars”.

It is not an inaccurate description. For it reminds us that regional conflicts can have global consequences.

If that does not strike a shiver down your back-bone, then you have not spent enough time studying history.

There is much about the piles of tinder scattered around the Middle East today which remind me of the Balkans in 1914.

So what should the policy of the western nations be to the impending danger?

The answer is simple. Don’t take sides.

We should have good relations with countries across the divide and treat them exactly the same.

If they sponsor terrorism we should ruthlessly expose them, rather than turning a blind eye for short term convenience.

If they engage in proxy conflicts we should not throw fuel onto the fire by supporting one side against the other, above all with weapons.

If they commit war crimes we should condemn them even handedly.

We should strive constantly to encourage dialogue between them.

We should avoid any step in which we in the West supports one side – the Sunnis – and Russia supports the other – the Shias. This is the greatest danger and we are very, very close to it.

Which brings us to Britain, Saudi Arabia and the Yemen.

Britain’s support of Saudi Arabia’s actions in Yemen is as foolish as it is reprehensible.

The indiscriminate Saudi bombing of civilians and the use of starvation as a weapon of war are illegal under international law. Britain’s silence on these war crimes is thunderous and shaming.

The fact that we are supplying arms to Saudi Arabia is even more so.

The Government tells us that no British weapons are being used. I know a little about the temptations and confusions of war and I simply do not believe this.

The Government should announce an immediate suspension of arms sales to Riyadh until their blockade of aid supplies is lifted and their indiscriminate bombing of civilians is ended.

I understand that crimes are committed by both sides in these dirty wars. The Houthi rebels in Yemen are doubtless also using aid and hunger as weapons of war.

But they are not an ally to whom we supply weapons and for whose actions we therefore bear responsibility. Riyadh is.

I know other things are involved here; trade, the struggle against terror, maintaining Western influence, nuclear proliferation.

I doubt whether bending our principles in favour of short-term advantage on these fronts will deliver anything of use to us in the long term. It never has before.

But such hopeful outcomes, if and when they arrive would have long ago been blotted out by the horrors of a widening religious war into which the great powers have been dragged.

That is the danger that now confronts us.

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