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Middle East and Afghanistan

My Lords, this debate has, naturally and rightly, been absorbed by today’s many crises that we face in the Middle East. We have more or less agreed that we are possibly on the verge of a turning point—another turning point, because during the past 50 years we have faced numerous ones. In the past few years, I have not been able to take a day-to-day interest in the Middle East because I have been preoccupied with other jobs. However, from the age of 10, I was out in the Middle East a great deal, for my father had a lifetime there and, at the end of his days, he was appointed as the special envoy of the Foreign Secretary to negotiate our withdrawal from the Middle East during 1970-71. Later, I was privileged enough to serve as a Minister of State in the 1980s with responsibilities for the Middle East. I hope that the House will bear with me if I focus on just two things. First, I should like to take a step back and reflect for a moment on what considerations should govern our approach to the Middle East. Secondly, I should like to focus briefly on one aspect where I think that Britain can be constructive, especially in the Gulf: that is, on political reform. It is worth reminding ourselves that it is less than a hundred years since the foundation of the modern Middle East was laid in the immediate post-First World War days leading up to 1922—largely imposed by Britain and France, for good or for ill—the Arab world having just emerged from 500 years of occupation in the Ottoman Empire, with all the inevitable wounds that that created. In Europe, it has taken us centuries to develop our nation states and current systems of government. It is also worth reminding ourselves that the Arab world had a great empire which started 13 centuries ago and flourished from the borders of China right across the Mediterranean, with quite a legacy in various parts of the world, such as Spain. More recently, we, too, have had our empire and have left good things and not such good things. One of the most interesting observations about empires is that in the period after they are over, countries suffer from a lack of self-confidence and some decline. Those symptoms exist in the Arab world and have done so for some time. There are certainly symptoms of lack of self-confidence in Britain today: the decline in faith; the decline in values. So any approach that we make to the Middle East should be with the utmost humility. It is against that background that we have today explored the explosive factors that exist in the Middle East: the failure to resolve the Palestine-Israel issue; the desperation in Iraq; the uncertainty in Lebanon; and the exasperation at the failure of the United Nations to implement many of the important Security Council resolutions, ranging from the resolutions that demanded that Israel end illegal settlements in occupied territories to the need to disarm Hezbollah in Lebanon. As a result of all that, many people live today in what one can only describe as a Dante's Inferno. The graphic descriptions that we have heard today in outstanding speeches have depicted that. As we all know, desperate people do desperate things. In that situation of desperation, the hardline states, such as Iran and Syria, are encouraged still further. I agree with all the speakers today who, in looking at the way forward, have said that it can come only from a twin approach: the will on the part of the countries of the Middle East to find a resolution; and with help, such as we can give it, from the West—Europe and the United States. It is of mutual interest to try to help them create stability. As we all agree, that needs a persistent international effort to help strengthen the moderates in that area and isolate the extremists. Whether we like it or not, it needs the help of the United States. We need to be reminded of Churchill's remark that, "““The United States invariably does the right thing, having exhausted every other alternative””." I just hope that they have now exhausted every other alternative. I ought now to be nice about the United States. Condoleezza Rice has not made the mistake that John Foster Dulles once made when he was Secretary of State. He landed in the Middle East and said: "““Now let us resolve these problems in a truly Christian fashion””." But we also need Europe, with her long historic connections with that area. Above all, I agree with all those, including my noble friend Lord Hannay, who say that there must be a regional solution. Arab neighbours must play an active part in all this. It is worth reminding ourselves that in 1961, a Kuwait crisis existed when General Kassem threatened to invade Kuwait. The British moved in, but very quickly afterwards an Arab peacekeeping force took our place. Although there are no direct analogies, it is worth reminding ourselves of that lesson. We must go on working vigorously for a just solution and strengthen the dialogue between the West and the Arab world, based on mutual respect for each other's history, culture and religion. I shall say just a word about political reform, especially in the Gulf, because that is where we can be most constructive. In the speech, which has already been referred to, made by Condoleezza Rice in Cairo in the summer, she said: "““For 60 years, the United States has pursued stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East and has achieved neither””." To my mind, that rather implies that democracy is unstable. Surely, the right political reform can in fact strengthen stability and they do not contradict each other. At this point, I declare an interest. I am patron of the Sir William Luce Memorial Fund, which is based in Durham University and is working with the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies there and Chatham House, with the support of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and of the Gulf states, on a project jointly to study political reform in the Gulf. There are certain considerations that we ought to take into account. That reform must be home-grown. It must stem from the roots of the Gulf states, the Arab states, themselves. It is worth reminding ourselves that, whereas in our empire we imposed the only system that we knew, understood and respected—our own system of parliamentary democracy—we did not do so in the Gulf because our responsibilities were for the protection of the external affairs of the Gulf and their defence, not their internal affairs. Those Gulf states can evolve their own system quite naturally, and we need to accept that they have a different culture, a different history, different traditions, and a different religion from ours. In the past, their tribes, clans and families have been the dominating factor, and their Majlis al-Shura system has given the people of those countries access to their rulers. But circumstances are changing. Elites—middle classes—are emerging in these areas. Modern travel and communication strengthen them, and there is also a very large foreign population in the Gulf states to help influence them. We can therefore welcome some of the changes: municipal elections in Saudi Arabia, Parliaments in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, the development of an al-Shura assembly in the Oman, recent elections in the Yemen, and elections shortly to be held in the UAE. In the elections in Palestine, it was encouraging to see that 63 per cent of the electorate wanted to vote. In Iraq, a high proportion of people wanted to vote, but they must have the right circumstances in which to allow democracy of one kind or another to flourish. We should therefore share our experiences with these countries. We should not impose ourselves on them or lecture them on what system they should have. Nor should we undermine the rulers of those countries in that process. Against the background of a decline in trust in politics and in Parliament here, and our doubts about a second Chamber and what its future should be, I rather doubt that we are in a good position to lecture them. The other aspect that has been touched on today is that we must meet the challenge that extremists—Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt—will get elected, and have been elected, to these assemblies. I am reminded of a conversation that is alleged to have taken place between Nehru and Nasser, when Nasser boasted to Nehru, ““I put my extremists in prison. What do you do with yours?””. Nehru is alleged to have replied, ““Actually, I put mine in Parliament””. There is something to be said for arguing by these means rather than fighting. Each state needs to develop its own system of accountability to suit its own circumstances. Above all, we need to encourage evolution rather than revolution. However long and drawn out the crisis of the Middle East has been, and is, we must persevere with our moderate friends to find a way forward that will bring peace as opposed to war in the Middle East.