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Iraq and the wider Middle East

I shall confine my remarks to Iraq. I add my voice to those who believe that the absence of the Prime Minister from the debate is shameful. It is wrong because it was the Prime Minister who led the country to war and who made the strongest case for war in this place. It is also wrong because the main justification for war—that of WMD—has since proved false, and the justification for our continued presence since that war—that life for the ordinary Iraqi is, or will be, so much better—is proving increasingly tenuous. In October last year the Prime Minister responded to my question at Prime Minister’s questions by saying that he would be"““happy to debate Iraq at any time.””—[Official Report, 25 October 2006; Vol. 450, c. 1515.]" His absence today is an insult to the lives that have been lost, particularly to our own military. For there can be little doubt that the situation is deteriorating. We have heard many figures discussed, which I do not intend to repeat. The fact that 9,000 civilians are being driven out of their homes every week, with families fleeing to their ethnic groups as sectarian violence intensifies, adds weight to Kofi Annan’s claim that life for the ordinary Iraqi is now worse than it was under Saddam Hussein. If the intention was to put in place a western-style liberal democracy, we have clearly failed because of mistakes in the immediate aftermath of the war. That view was supported by our Chief of the General Staff, who stated that we should lower our ambitions for what we hoped to achieve. It is therefore not surprising that there is no shortage of alternative strategies from different policy makers. However, the latest announcement by President Bush about sending 20,000 extra troops into Baghdad, in what is being called the surge, is doomed to failure, as several hon. Members pointed out. There are essentially two reasons for that. First, inadequate numbers of troops are being sent in. The ratio of troops to citizens is clearly inadequate for counter-insurgency operations. That was reinforced by General David Petraeus, the new American commander, who co-authored an American counter-insurgency field manual. He believes that the ratio must be 20 to 25 soldiers for every 1,000 civilians. Given that the population of Baghdad is 6 million, there is no way that the troop numbers can match that ratio. It is no wonder that General John Abizaid, head of central command, which oversees US strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, told a Senate hearing last November that increasing troops by 20,000 would have only a temporary effect on security, and delay the day when Iraqi forces could take over. It is no surprise that he was dismissed. Secondly, it could be argued that the presence of coalition forces in some areas of Iraq fuels or exacerbates the insurgency. The Foreign Secretary is fond of citing surveys. In September, one survey found that 61 per cent. of Iraqis, including a majority of Shi’as and almost all Sunnis, approved of attacks on coalition forces. That view appeared to be confirmed by General Sir Richard Dannatt, who made the point that in some parts of the country, the presence of British troops exacerbates the situation. We must accept that there is no purely military solution to Iraq’s problems. We need an internal political settlement between Arab and Kurd, Sunni and Shi’a. However, two key obstacles need to be overcome before we can claim any semblance of success in Iraq. First, we all know that Iraq is driven by factions rooted in almost 1,000 years of history. The challenge of overcoming that must not be underestimated. The composition of the Iraqi Government is sectarian, with key players acting in the interest of their faction rather than that of the nation. Divisions and lack of progress nationally strengthen the role of militias, from which many of Iraq’s leaders draw their power. The Americans conducted a big operation at the end of last year in the north-east of the city, which involved sealing off what is known as the military canal to try to cut off insurgents. However, it had to be stopped after the Government applied political pressure because the operation was making life too difficult for their factions and militias in the area. The outgoing American general, General Casey, conveyed the clear message that no strategy can succeed unless that obstacle is properly overcome. The second key obstacle to progress in Iraq is the United States’ simplistic view of the region. The concept of an axis of evil needs to be addressed, because its approach is too rigid. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the former British ambassador to the United Nations, said that finding a solution would require a"““massive new effort of regional diplomacy””" involving Syria and Iran. It is therefore a shame that President Bush dismissed the Baker report out of hand. It was perceived as a triumph of the realists over the neocons. The report embraced the key principle that one makes peace with one’s enemies, not one’s friends. Yet President Bush has turned to the neocons, who devised the latest surge policy, and is now pressing for confrontation with Iran. That must be the wrong approach. Engaging regional powers is already difficult for the US because of the perception, which was strengthened in the recent conflict in Lebanon last summer, of a bias towards Israel. Taking such a confrontational approach now can only make matters worse. Unless those obstacles are overcome, the mission in Iraq will either ultimately fail or result in a stalemate in which the US and UK will remain committed to the country at an ever-increasing cost, both in financial terms and in lives. We should be setting strategic goals for withdrawal, including establishing the political and military milestones needed to promote reconciliation and stability. Our presence in Iraq cannot be justified indefinitely. I completely disagree, however, with the Liberal proposal that we set a fixed timetable for withdrawal. That would only act as a spur to the insurgents to ““have a go””, which would put British lives at risk as well as adding to the mounting civilian casualties. We need to scale down our ambitions, however. We are no longer in a position, if ever we were, to establishment a functioning liberal democracy in Iraq, and we should now use whatever influence we have on the Americans to push for that strategy. Meanwhile, we are left to ponder the legacies of this shambles. One cannot help but conclude that our involvement has brought about many of the threats that it was meant to prevent. The Prime Minister’s concept of a preventive war has been discredited. For example, one of the arguments for the war was that otherwise, at some point in the future the twin problems of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda would come together, and that Iraq would become a training ground for international terrorism. We now know that al-Qaeda was not in Iraq before the invasion, but it is now. The Baker-Hamilton report has claimed that Iraq is now a"““base of operations for international terrorism, including al Qaeda””." Recent reports on both sides of the Atlantic have confirmed this fact—a fact that, interestingly, has not been denied by the respective Governments. Weapons of mass destruction were the main pretext for going to war. The signal sent to Iran and North Korea by this invasion is that they, too, might face invasion—but there is no incentive for them not to arm. Therefore, they might as well have weapons of mass destruction, if only to act as a deterrent. After all, Iraq had no such weapons, and look what happened there. This episode highlights the moral bankruptcy at the heart of our foreign policy in the region. We must do more to differentiate between right and wrong in our foreign policy objectives. We cannot go goose-stepping round the world, invading countries because we think that they present a threat, and then, when we discover that they did not, trying to justify our actions by saying that life for their citizens is somehow better now. That is the law of the jungle. It is illegal: it is against article 2 of the United Nations charter. It cannot, and should not, be sustained in this day and age. By adhering to such a policy, we set dangerous precedents and examples to emerging powers such as China.