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North Africa and the Middle East

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because he allows me to correct the impression I might be giving that I am against no-fly zones. I believe that we need to consider this carefully and positively and work out how to make it happen. In a sense the Libyan terrain is much easier, not least because, to state the obvious, it is much flatter than Bosnia in particular. However, I do not believe that we yet have the local engagement with the political parties and groups on the ground that made the northern Iraq no-fly zone successful. We have not yet achieved that in Libya, and we need to establish it. I suggest that the Libyan air force capabilities are probably pretty much comparable with what Yugoslavia and the Iraqis had in the 1990s. I think it was the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) who cautioned us to try to learn from history. As A. J. P. Taylor said, it is perfectly possible not to learn lessons from history and to make entirely new mistakes. There are some things that we can learn from no-fly zones. We need absolutely clear and unambiguous rules of engagement and absolute clarity about when the purpose is humanitarian and when it is military, and unless the no-fly zone supports something that is happening on the ground, it will not help. We had better be aware of that.