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Iraq and the Middle East

My Lords, would the Minister acknowledge that the most troubling aspect of the Prime Minister’s Statement was his attempt to characterise the complex and very different situations in a number of different parts of the region as, "““an epochal struggle between the forces of progress and the forces of reaction””?" This light and dark approach brings no practical help to the diplomacy that needs to be deployed by any country that cares for democracy and justice in tackling these historic and long-rooted problems. Will the Minister also retreat from the expression in the Statement about the spread of these things to the region, for force is surely discredited in that part of the world when it is deployed by external nations, whatever the rhetoric used by their political leaders?