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Global Security (Middle East)

In post-conflict societies, people are often taken out of factions and groups, brought under the new arrangements and used in the new forces. That has happened with some of the Palestinian groups and in other countries and conflicts. I have visited Iraq three times and have seen the work and training carried out by our military and police. I saw Ghurkhas and the British Army doing the same in Sierra Leone as well. The quality of that training is excellent, but it takes time to create the new structure of a professional army. We probably do not have 10 or 15 years to train people in new ways of thinking and working, in order to find the perfect solution, which means that we might have to deal with people from different groups and organisations. Certainly the Kurdish peshmerga who fought so bravely for many years against Saddam have shown their commitment to different values from those of the Ba'athist regime. We need to be pragmatic and not absolutist. Near the end of our report, we recommended that the Government publish a public strategy paper on the middle east and reassess their approach to the region. Paragraph 122 of the Government's response states:"““The Government notes the Committee's recommendations and will reflect further on how best to set out its strategy on the various aspects of the Middle East in the light of the Government's National Security Strategy and the Public Service Agreement on Conflict Prevention, both of which will be published in the coming months.””" Will the Minister update us on those further reflections? Is there now greater clarity on future Government policy on those wider issues? The conflicts are interrelated. Anybody who watches satellite television knows that what happens in Palestine, Iraq or any other part of the Arab world is seen by millions of Arabs and Muslims, and many non-Muslims and non-Arabs, through al-Jazeera and other television channels. That is why we need a specific and comprehensive approach to the countries of the region, and to consider how Government policy can influence and improve the situation for the hundreds of millions of people suffering from great difficulties in that region.