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Iraq

My Lords, I think that I just answered that. As I said, it became a matter of law partly for that reason. But it is not the real issue; that was not the judgment that was made. I come back for my final moments, and I will still finish on time. The balance of power in the world is changing. The United States is in relative decline. That does not mean that it is going down—it is in relative decline to the powers that are coming up. We know that great wars start when great powers are in decline relative to others. That is what happened with Britain when Germany, Russia, Japan and the United States rose in the early 20th century. Now we have the deadly problem of failed states, dictatorships and weapons of mass destruction. If we rely simply on trying to get the law right before we intervene, it is only a matter of time before some of these brutal dictators use weapons of mass destruction far outside their own borders. Saddam Hussein did it—we and the lawyers conveniently forget that. I say to the lawyers: use your time to start working out how we should deal with these situations by creating international institutions that will enable us to deal with extreme dictators of this type. You cannot justify it; do not try to justify it; and do not end up like the medieval theologians whom you sound like at the moment.