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Middle East and Afghanistan

My Lords, I, too, was all for toppling Saddam because I had seen some of the damage that he had caused in Kuwait and the evil that he had perpetrated. But I am glad to say that I also warned against the possible dire consequences if we did not take the utmost care. It is quite clear, as so many speakers have said, that we and our American allies have committed a catalogue of errors. As things stand, frankly, I know of no one who has a wholly acceptable, credible answer to the predicament that now afflicts the Americans and ourselves in Iraq. I put ourselves as second fiddle there, because that is plainly the role that we have played so far. The Baker-Hamilton commission reports to Congress tomorrow, but, if the leaks are anything to go by, it will not have a very satisfactory answer either. Our Prime Minister will be in Washington to contribute, I hope, to the President’s response to the commission’s recommendations. We hope that he does not echo the President’s response too slavishly, without full regard to British interests. The truth is that we are in a very weak position in Iraq. That weakness is reflected to a varying extent in Afghanistan and other areas of the Middle East where we are involved. The soft centre of that weakness is that, overall, the policies pursued to date are patently discredited and tainted with failure. Our errors were noted by James Baker in his autobiographical synopsis published yesterday, and many of them were mentioned by my noble friend Lord Blaker earlier in this debate. No amount of spinning and happy hours of statistics can change that perception of failure. The American people have shown their dissatisfaction in the mid-term elections. A similar, deeply disappointed mood prevails among the electorate in this country. There is a clear demand for a change of course, but the path is fog-bound and not clearly visible. In the absence of a clear-cut alternative approach or a fresh, convincing strategy, eventual withdrawal from Iraq and decreased involvement elsewhere appear inevitable, which gives more than comfort to the insurgent forces that oppose us—it inspires them to greater effort. While the situation in Afghanistan under NATO’s command may be less acute, the Taliban are certainly back at the gates of Kabul, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, indicated. One of their commanders recently told the Times: "““We are in no hurry ... look at how far we have come from nothing. We’re in a guerrilla war. It isn’t a matter of two or three years. It might take us ten, even thirty-five years. Will the foreign soldiers last that long here?””." Those are the people who created 4.6 million refugees, who are now happily returning—but for how long? I regard that statement by the commander as very telling when set alongside the disappointed attitudes prevailing in the West. There is talk of negotiations with Syria and Iran to ease the tensions in the Shi’ite areas where they are involved, from Lebanon to Afghanistan and Iraq. That in itself is a sign of weakness, as President Bush realises only too well. Iran was, after all, part of his ““axis of evil””. As some of the speakers in this debate have said, such negotiations would be fraught with danger, including a greater role for those two states in neighbouring Shi’ite territories. Their past record hardly inspires confidence. I understand that yesterday Mr Bush met the Shia leader, Mr al-Hakim, who heads the biggest block of MPs in the Iraqi Parliament. He is close to the Iranian leadership and, I am told, wants the Americans to stay in Iraq to deal with terrorists. He has his own militia of 25,000 men. He is opposed to the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army. I do not know what to make of that, except that there is clearly no unity even in the Shia sect. If Iran persists and succeeds in developing its nuclear capabilities, its power will extend far beyond the Shi’ite limits to the ““crescent”” described by the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg. So far, Iran has not indicated a willingness to negotiate with the United States on the nuclear issue in spite of a conditional offer to do so from the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, which itself represented a reversal of US policy. If such negotiations were to occur, in a fresh and broader political context that appealed to Tehran as a way of extending its influence, due regard should be paid to Henry Kissinger’s recently expressed conclusion, in an article in the Sunday Times of 19 November, that, "““if, at the end of such a diplomacy, stands an Iranian nuclear capability and a political vacuum being filled by Iran, the impact on order in the Middle East will be catastrophic””." The Sunni countries—Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and others—are already nervous at the prospect of the Shi’ite accretion of power extending from Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon to Afghanistan. It is also difficult to see Israel standing idly by while her opponents mass themselves for a jihad against her. Israel might be tempted to make a pre-emptive strike. Meanwhile, we are confronted daily with the atrocious situation in Iraq and the mounting toll of casualties caused by the seemingly senseless and murderous onslaught of the terrorist militias on the Shia-Sunni frontiers in Baghdad and elsewhere. Life, according to some—including the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan—is worse than it was under Saddam Hussein. Iraq has a democratically elected Government, of which we had high hopes, but its Prime Minister, Mr al-Maliki, has pleaded with the United States for more power to be given to him. Certainly, something must be done to clean up the police and other forces to ensure their undivided loyalty to the state in the battle to establish order and stability. If social order is not restored, we cannot decently and honourably hand over power to the Iraqi Government and withdraw. At the end of the day, the people of Iraq will vote for a strong Government and secure that by hook or by crook, and we may be back where we started—with another monstrous Saddam, or a fundamentalist regime ruthless in the execution of a merciless religious law. The truth is that our choices are very limited. We are dealing with Islamic states and powers that have been aroused in a way and to an extent that we have not seen for centuries. They have an ancient faith-inspired strength that empowers individuals to alarming self-sacrificial actions, and counters the value and efficacy of modern weaponry. Our basic policy must be containment until we can safely disengage, but that disengagement is not currently in prospect. Precipitate disengagement could well have injurious repercussions here at home, if interpreted as a sign of weakness. It could encourage violent reactions. The only way to ensure peace and stability in Iraq is to convince the insurgents that they cannot win. I am afraid that, at this time, we are far from achieving that position.