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Middle East and Afghanistan

My Lords, I, too, welcome the opportunity for a debate on developments in the Middle East and in Afghanistan. I thank the opening speakers for a succession of comprehensive and extraordinarily good speeches. The two areas of conflict that are the subject of our debate today are very much linked in the minds of many people because British soldiers are regularly risking their lives in an attempt to bring peace, stability and prosperity in both Iraq and Afghanistan. They are linked, too, if we are honest, because of a perception held by many people, although perhaps not as many as some commentators would have us believe, that the conflicts lie at the root of Islamic reaction to western interference. I believe that any realistic analysis demonstrates how different the issues are, both in their origins and in the current way forward available to us. Afghanistan has suffered decades of conflict and turmoil. It is one of the poorest countries anywhere in the world, and because of that poverty even the most basic services such as education and healthcare have long been denied to its people. One in four Afghan children dies before their fifth birthday. More than half the population lives on less than a dollar a day. Between 20 and 40 per cent of Afghans are underfed and undernourished. In these circumstances of abject poverty, where the sustaining of life is a terrible struggle each day, of course people turn to any and every means of feeding their children. Opium remains the most profitable crop for most rural farmers. About 1.7 million people—over 7 per cent of the Afghan population—rely on illegal poppy farming as a way of providing for their families. That fuels insecurity, corruption, indebtedness and fear. Alternative livelihoods are therefore absolutely vital in order to counter the opium trade, but clearly those alternatives are not created overnight. People who are poor and intimidated by drug dealers do not find it easy to abandon one form of livelihood for another without being certain of success. The Minister has described how the Government have put enormous and growing resources into the endeavour of looking for alternative livelihoods, and his words, of course, are very welcome. But the real issue here is how much finding those livelihoods will be dependent on improved security. That is the real test for NATO. I well remember the discussions when I was a Minister about the levels of commitment from our NATO allies to our joint efforts in Afghanistan. It was, frankly, a disheartening experience listening to some of the contributions of our allies and partners at that time. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us how that has begun to change in terms of support on the ground militarily and support to the Government of Afghanistan on their reforms to its institutions—support, for example, for the civil service and for the key non-governmental organisations. One of my fiercest concerns is the status of women in Afghanistan. At the time of the Taliban, women were not being educated. Very often they could not get medical help unless they were accompanied by their husbands, which meant, of course, premature death for many widows. Women’s lives were, in effect, completely shut down at that time. So it is good to see, as the Minister has said, that over one-third of children in school are now girls and that 75 per cent of those receiving loans from the micro-finance investment support facility are women. But there are alarming reports that a resurgence of Taliban activity in some parts of Afghanistan has led to an increasingly hostile backlash against these welcome improvements. When the Minister winds up, I hope that he will be able to tell us how our aid programme is making a lasting impact on the improvements in women’s lives. I hope that he will tell us whether he believes that these changes are as yet sufficiently well established within Afghanistan society for us to be able to believe that women’s lives will continue to improve as Afghans take on more and more responsibility for their own country. I turn now to Iraq. When we debated the gracious Speech, our concerns over Iraq were acute, and they remain so. The losses of our troops when such tragedies occur are appalling. So, too, are the almost daily news reports of the most barbaric and disgusting incidents of sectarian violence and murder. I understand that it is now routine for the perpetrators of these murders to be readily identified by the methods of torture that they use before they kill their victims. But the growth of Shia-on-Sunni and Sunni-on-Shia violence, which has been a terrible development over the past 18 months or so, is a fact, and I, for one, do not for a moment believe that anyone can think it will abate without fresh international and internal thinking on policy and operational approach. Let us not forget that it was only in January that Iraqis in their millions voted for democracy and a new way forward. Many did so in spite of threats against their lives because they believed in the future of their country. But to have a real future, all countries have to have the ability to control their economies and, above all, their own security. The fact is that Iraq has a dual nightmare of internal conflict between two or more different groups, and of the supply of arms and reinforcements from its closest neighbours. In my view, it has been short-sighted of our friends in the United States to have so little contact with Syria and Iran over the past two or three years. Both countries have porous borders with Iraq; both believe that they have good reason of their own to wish to secure an Iraq that is not threatening to them and to widen their sphere of influence within that country. But the two countries are very different. For all the internal disputes in the Arab League, Syria is one of its own. It may be unreliable, and its leaders may be given to outbursts of rhetoric that are inimical to most Arab sensibilities, but most believe that Syria has been wronged and will, given time and patience—and probably a very hard talking to—rejoin the Arab family where it belongs. The attitude to Iran is more complex. In my experience, Iran is feared and mistrusted by its Arab neighbours. But it commands a degree of respect: it is powerful; it is more populous than any of its Arab neighbours except Egypt; it has a history as long as that of Egypt and a well disciplined army; and it has a very real sense of its own identity. It is a player of real importance in the region, and in respect of Iraq. I hope that the Baker-Hamilton study group will reflect that when it reports tomorrow. May I ask the Minister what the Prime Minister, having given his evidence to the study group, will do when the report is published? Will the United Kingdom Government respond? How will the Government’s view be formulated? I hope that we will have an opportunity to discuss the study group’s findings in this House—even if we have to do so outside this Chamber. I would very much welcome that. I have left the Israeli-Palestinian conflict until last, but it is still in my view the issue of overarching difficulty and importance in the region. The words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester just now were enormously moving. He asked whether members of Her Majesty’s Government had been to look at the war or spoken to those directly affected by it. Speaking for myself, I can say that the answer is yes. I did so on several occasions when I was the Minister for the Middle East. At that time—and I am sure it is still the case, as the Minister no doubt will confirm—we protested vigorously about the way in which the war was routed, as we have made clear over and over again in your Lordships’ House. Since we discussed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the debate on the gracious Speech, we have seen not only a ceasefire called by the Palestinians but a speech of real importance from the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert. Of course, we have seen ceasefires before, and the test is often not so much whether individuals or terrorist groups respect the ceasefire but what happens when they do not. Israel has a history of swift and comprehensive retaliation, as we saw all too clearly this summer. What is remarkable is that, given that both Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas are under huge pressure at home—as has been made very clear this afternoon—this ceasefire is holding. President Abbas is taking on the Palestinian gunmen in what he is saying publicly and Prime Minister Olmert is making it clear that the Government are in charge of the IDF and not the other way round. He is making it clear that rules of engagement must be enforced. He is not in an enviable position, but his speech last week made it absolutely evident that he is determined to adhere to that position. For his part, Abu Mazen has tried in good faith to form a Government with Hamas that would command international support. Maybe if it had been left to Prime Minister Haniya, such a Government might have been formed—but it was not to be. That is another very good reason for our sustaining a frank and robust dialogue with Damascus. Now both Prime Minister Olmert and President Abu Mazen need solid international support. They are getting it from Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia—and that is very welcome. But unless that support is strong and sustained not only from those countries but from all the countries in the Arab League—and not only now but when the going gets really tough—and unless we in the United Nations, the EU, Russia and the US together with other world players are able to reinforce that support, this may well be another false dawn. Maybe there is a real opportunity here—and not just an opportunity in the region—because, to be frank, of the recent changes in the US. The departure of Mr Rumsfeld may prompt many reactions, but most reactions on this side of the Atlantic will not be of sorrow. Similarly, Mr Bolton, a very intelligent, enormously hard-working ambassador at the UN, had the terrible drawback of never believing that he could just be wrong. I do not think, given his recent interventions, that many UN delegations will be sorry to see him go. To make a difference now, we have to grasp the real problem of talking to those who for years have been isolated, by the United States and others, in the search for peace in the region. We have to talk not only to the nation states—long established and part of the region—of Syria and Iran, but also to Hamas, Hezbollah and other groups that have engaged in violence but are willing now to talk to us. I know that this is an enormously difficult and sensitive point, but we have to think very clearly about imposing preconditions on whom we speak to and when. We owe it not only to the Palestinians and the Israelis, and not only to the Iraqis, but also to the Lebanese—that brave country with a courageous Prime Minister who expected better of the international community and who had a right to expect better. Lebanon deserves all our support and all our effort now. I look forward to my noble friend’s response about what the Prime Minister’s next steps will be in giving that support and sustaining that effort.