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Middle East and Afghanistan

My Lords, reading the Hansard account of your Lordships’ discussion of foreign and security policies during the debate on the humble Address was a rather sobering experience. Not only did the twin cuckoos of Iraq and Afghanistan seem to drive every other foreign policy issue, whether the future of the European Union, the fate of Africa or the problems of world trade and climate change, into the margins, but the whole tone of the debate was shot through with anger and despair, with few enough suggestions for adjustments to the policies which were so widely criticised. This is sad, but it is a fact and it reflects a general mood in this country, encouraged, it needs to be recognised, by a media which simply ignore any positive stories that emerge in either of the combat zones in which our troops are currently engaged. Today, we have an opportunity to return to those two burning topics of the hour and to look more widely at the problems of the Middle East. I should like to make a modest contribution to a shift in emphasis away from Stygian gloom towards remedial action. I very much welcome the fact that a number of participants in the debate have taken a similar course. First, I make a plea to decouple in our thinking those twin issues of Iraq and Afghanistan. They are two very different countries in two very different regions. No doubt someone will forgive the speech writer who coined the meaningless and misleading phrase, ““The wider Middle East””, but I shall not readily do so. They are subject to quite different considerations and need quite different policy prescriptions. The costs of failure in each will also be very different. Linking them together, therefore, serves no useful purpose; it merely makes it more likely that failure, or relative failure, in one will drag down the other. Looking first at Iraq, much attention is currently being given to the possibility of enlisting its neighbours, in particular Syria and Iran, in an effort to stabilise the country and check the sectarian violence. I welcome that attention, having myself called for a regional approach to security issues since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, but we need to approach this issue in a serious and systematic way. It is no good thinking that an appeal to Syria’s and Iran’s better feelings, because we are in a pickle, is going to bring a positive response. Nor should any attempt to bring in Iraq’s neighbours be confined to these two countries. It surely needs to encompass all Iraq’s neighbours, not just the ones which cause the most trouble. So that means bringing in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Jordan and Turkey too. To what should we try to bring them in? Not, I suggest, some one-off conference, which would be long on words and short on follow-up. Surely, what is needed is to give all these countries, including Iraq, of course, a long-term stake and a long-term say in the stability of their region. That could mean a regional organisation which would give legal guarantees of non-intervention, systematise co-operation across a whole range of policy areas and provide for in-depth confidence building measures between its members. I can already hear critics saying how utterly unrealistic all that is in the present fraught state of affairs, or asking how we can offer such openings to Iran or Syria when we are still at odds with them over nuclear and other issues. Well, what are the alternatives? Might not giving Iran and Syria a real stake in regional security make some of the other problems that we have with them easier, not more difficult, to resolve? I suggest that on one point we need to be clear. The disintegration of Iraq into three separate states would be an unmitigated disaster likely to lead to intervention by its neighbours and to a wider conflict even than the one that currently exists. Because any such conflict would risk involving the vital interests of all western countries, it would not be one from which we could afford to stand aside or from whose consequences we would be protected. So, by all means—I would strongly support this—let us have a federal Iraq with considerable powers devolved to its three component regions, although a functioning central Government and an equitable sharing of oil revenues would be essential if that were to work. But let us not be seduced by those siren voices from across the Atlantic, which sometimes argue that we could contemplate the break-up of Iraq with equanimity. Afghanistan, it seems to me, is a quite different set of problems, and one where the prospects for a relatively successful outcome are a good deal better. There, too, there is a need for a regional approach, although with a quite different group of countries, Iran being the only common factor with the neighbours of Iraq. Afghanistan’s neighbours have often meddled in its affairs in the past, just as Afghanistan has meddled in theirs. The single most vulnerable point now, as it has often been in the past, is the porous border with Pakistan’s tribal areas, which are not fully under the control of the central Government. In the case of Afghanistan, too, the establishment of some kind of regional grouping with strong, binding commitments to stabilisation and co-operation would seem to be highly desirable. At the same time, along with others who have spoken, I hope that we would take another careful look at our policies on drug eradication, which, as currently designed and implemented, seem likely to cut right across attempts to provide security and development in the south of the country, and which do not seem to be getting to grips with the corruption and drug traders in high places within the Government machine. That brings me to the one issue that truly impacts on both Iraq and Afghanistan, as it does on the whole battle that we are waging against terrorism, and that is the sorry state of efforts to resolve the problem of Palestine. If anyone doubted that a policy of neglect and unilaterally imposed solutions was doomed to failure, recent events in Lebanon and Gaza have surely blown aside those doubts. At the same time, there are few, if any, signs, of a purposeful move back to a peace process which, over many long and weary years, has become discredited. I would except from that criticism the recent speech by Prime Minister Ohlmet, which seemed to be a very serious attempt to send a signal. However discredited that peace process may be, there really is no practical alternative if we are to avoid periodic outbreaks of hostility and if we are to leech away the poison of Islamic fundamentalism. The time has now come, as many others who have spoken in this debate have said, for a renewed effort. Perhaps it is also time to move away—and here I differ from many others—from the staged approach characterised by the much referred-to road map, which seems, so far at any rate, always to founder on the mutual distrust of the two sides so long as the final status issues are not being addressed. We should move towards negotiations more like those at Camp David in 2000, which did address those final status issues. Can we expect a lead from the same direction that gave a lead in 2000; namely, the US Administration? I fear not. There I entirely agree with those, including the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who cast doubt on whether the present US Administration look likely to give any such lead in the next two years. I do not believe that they are going to do so. Can the Europeans, at least, begin to move ahead, working with both Arabs and Israelis, to prepare the ground? I believe that they can and should. After all, the European initiative in 1980, led by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who was here at the beginning of today’s debate, paved the way towards acceptance of a two-state solution. That initiative, though much criticised by the Americans at the time, was later accepted by them. Like others, I regret that our Government were not part of the initiative recently taken by the French, Spanish and Italian Governments; perhaps they can now catch up with that and ensure that the European Union as a whole, with its considerable influence, begins to stake out the ground for a comprehensive settlement. The appointment of a politically prominent European Union figure with a strong official-level back-up team might be one way to get the ball rolling. I would not see that as in any way abandoning the use of the quartet as an essential co-ordinating instrument. Indeed, the new UN Secretary-General, a very welcome visitor to this city today and tomorrow, would be an essential part of that and could become a very important player, along with the EU, in a renewed effort to build momentum towards peace negotiations. As so often, there are, no doubt, plenty of objections to proceeding in this way. People will say that nothing can be done without the Americans. True—up to a point: nothing can be completed without the Americans. There is no question of a Middle East peace settlement being agreed without full American involvement and endorsement. Does that mean that we have to wait until they are ready to move? I do not think so. Doing nothing much while the Middle East burns again is surely the worst of all policy prescriptions.