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Middle East and Afghanistan

My Lords, I am pleased to second the warm tribute to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness. It is good to be sandwiched between two distinguished former diplomats. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, always speaks with great authority and I am confident that the noble Baroness who is about to deliver her maiden speech will follow in those tracks, particularly regarding her major areas of expertise in counterterrorism and the European Union. As the noble Lord has just said, several tectonic plates grind against one another in the Middle East, causing disturbances in many different areas, but the constant is the conflict between Israel and Palestine. If there were to be a solution there, it would not solve other regional conflicts, but it would certainly make those conflicts more manageable. I shall concentrate on the prospects for the proposed conference in Annapolis, although it appears that only the location has been decided; timing, participants and agenda are in the air. As is the case with any debate on the Middle East, there are already two starting points. First, as we saw to our cost in the EU Sub-Committee after we embarked on our inquiry, there is the arrival of the unexpected, such as the coup of Hamas on 15 June this year. We had looked closely at the position that we would adopt in relation to Hamas. Then came its dramatic and violent takeover of Gaza and the subsequent entrenchment of what many now see as an Islamist state, heavily supported by Iran. We pressed on, notwithstanding that dramatic turn of events. We included a brief Chapter 6, attempting to foresee the consequences of that takeover. What is new is the increasingly bitter division among the Palestinians, which reflects a wider Sunni/Shia split in the region. The takeover is a good illustration of the unpredictability of events in the Middle East. The second complicating factor is the irrationality of much of the debate. That combination of unpredictability and irrationality must make one apprehensive about the prospects of success for any proposed conference, even if it is essentially a cover for relations between the two principal participants—the Palestinian Authority and Israel—leading to a series of other conferences. After all, as my noble friend the Minister knows all too well, the United Nations was extremely confident after 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The UN had enormous success, which I witnessed, in Namibia. It appeared then that everything was attainable. Alas, it was not to be. Yes, we had the Oslo accords in the 1990s, but as the outcome of Camp David showed—even with a United States President prepared to commit much time and political capital to the region, and with a pragmatic Israeli premier in Barak—the initiatives came to nought. Abu Ala, the current Palestinian negotiator, claimed to me that the failure arose because the US Administration were pushing too hard when he and his Israeli interlocutor, Shlomo Ben-Ami, were step by step moving in the ways of the Levant in the correct direction. Others blame Arafat’s indecision and personal weakness. As Shimon Peres frequently states, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. What is clear is that the road map seems to have petered out in the sands before either party had completed their obligations under the first stage. At a time when Arab leaders in 2002 were promoting an interesting initiative, the Bush Administration, if only as a riposte to the Clinton Administration, turned away from the region until this year. What are the negative features as we approach the conference? The first is political weakness on all sides. Prime Minister Olmert has been damaged by the incursion into the Lebanon, and the Palestinians by fratricidal strife. There is a lame-duck US President who has little credibility in the region as a result of the Iraq invasion and does not want his foreign policy legacy only to be seen as Iraq. Can the Palestinians make progress when their negotiations are led by the Fatah old guard, notably Abu Ala, and when Hamas, which it now bitterly hates, is wholly excluded from the process? However, there are some positive signs. At least Israel and Palestine are in direct talks. There is little detail, but this fact is a good sign. Benchmarks have been established in earlier talks and, the reverse side of my earlier point, Hamas is out of the picture—at least in the early stages. Key Arab players are engaged. They have visited Israel, are concerned about growing Shia influence in the region and have a credible set of agreed proposals, led by Egypt and Jordan. It may be that the Saudis have reached some sort of deal—explicit or implicit—with the US Administration to assist in Iraq if the US presses harder in Palestine. Equally, there is a wider coalition within the Knesset and President Abbas clearly wants peace, whereas Arafat’s motives were unclear. The regional intervention may provide an acceptable cover for bilateral accords. What in the Government’s view are the chances for the coming conference and the best means of making progress? The devil is not in the details, but in the key principles, which are well known. Is there at least a prospect of a comprehensive armistice or hudna beyond the negative or limited ceasefire? Is it at least worth seeking shorter, practical and pragmatic steps that would create realities over time? For example, Israel, in an effort to produce trust between the parties, released more than 250 prisoners in July and has released several batches of prisoners since then. As part of the Oslo family and reunification policy, Israel will be granting residency permits to 5,000 Palestinians who have been living illegally on the West Bank. There has also been the symbolic act of the beginning of reconstruction of the roadway between Ramallah and Jerusalem. Much can be done on the economic side and I commend the Government for their initiative on 17 September of launching an economic report. There cannot be real progress without tackling the economic misery on the Palestinian side. On Iran, I believe that the Foreign Secretary has, as yet, refused to follow Jack Straw in stating that the use of force would be ““inconceivable””. Financial pressures, with enhanced sanctions, public and private—including from the banks, which may be of greater importance, as they were in South Africa—are the most likely means of achieving a moderation of policy. A military strike on the three major nuclear installations would only make moderates rally behind the flag at a time when there is real discontent—one thinks of the tomato problems in the spring of this year, signs of disaffection among the populace and words of caution by the Supreme Leader and by Rohani regarding President Ahmadinejad. Would it not be more helpful if the US was to show Iran that it was not focused only on regime change and was more pragmatic, as it was regarding North Korea, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said? Finally, a postscript on Afghanistan. There has been the very bad news in the recent UN report about the increase in drug production, which the Minister set out in his speech. President Karzai has acknowledged that the security situation has deteriorated, with a recent upsurge in violence, and it is clear that not all NATO countries are pulling their weight, as many like to think that they can operate only from relatively safe areas in the north. Clearly, there should be consensus that we must be there for the long term and provide the necessary resources, because a failure in Afghanistan, with even greater poppy production affecting our streets and even greater sources of terrorist activity by the Taliban, would have the most adverse repercussions not just in Pakistan and the region, but over the world as a whole. Therefore, at least let us be agreed that we cannot, as a world community, countenance failure in Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban.