In September I visited Lebanon, a country on the frontline of the refugee crisis. I met Syrians fleeing the brutality of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and of Islamic State.
I met Iman, a 65-year-old grandmother from Aleppo, who was imprisoned by the Assad regime for more than two weeks. She had bravely returned to Syria after her son was killed to rescue her five grandchildren. They now live together in a shack made of breeze blocks, cardboard and plastic sheeting on rocky land outside the Lebanese port of Sidon.
Hadia told me how her husband, a Red Cross volunteer, was killed in Syria. Four of her older children are still trapped in Homs. Ahmed from Raqqa, and Yousif from Mosul in Iraq fled their homes with their families when Isis/Daesh took over their cities.
There is a massive humanitarian crisis in Syria. Over 250,000 Syrians have been killed, and more than 4.7 million refugees have fled to neighbouring countries. Six million people have been internally displaced, having suffered cluster munitions attacks, chemical weapons attacks, and disappearances. Thousands of civilians live under siege, their access to basic services denied, their condition simply unknown.
In August 2013, Labour members of parliament voted against the government motion to back military action in Syria. David Cameron lost the vote having failed to command the support of his backbenchers. The vote was prompted by a sarin gas attack on civilians in eastern Damascus, which killed over 1,400 people, including 426 children. The United Nations doctrine of the responsibility to protect allows military intervention to protect civilians from genocide and war crimes by their state, and provided a valid legal basis for intervention. With the albatross of Iraq hanging around both parties’ necks, it was an understandable but unforgivable mistake and the one vote that I shall regret forever.
The United Kingdom’s decision not to back airstrikes weakened the Obama administration’s resolve, and the movement to intervene in Syria melted away. The west effectively told al-Assad that he could do what he liked to his country’s people and that we would not act, no matter how terrible his crimes.
The result? The refugee crisis, ungoverned space which allowed Isis/Daesh to move in, and a war without law and without end in Syria. That vote left the west’s foreign policy enfeebled, and weakened our negotiating power at the Geneva peace talks.
Cameron must take some of the blame for this failure of British foreign policy. His mercantilist eagerness to court new export markets in China and Russia has led the Foreign Office into decline. MPs on both sides are now looking for a comprehensive approach to Syria.
For the last two years, the west has lacked a coherent strategy for dealing with Isis/Daesh and the crisis in Syria. A war that we wished was none of our business has become our business. Syrian children have drowned in our seas. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have turned up in our continent seeking shelter. People like us, who had cars, apartments and solar panels, forced to flee bombs and sarin gas dropped by their own government – a government whose actions have enabled Isis/Daesh to wreak havoc in their pursuit of a caliphate.
In September 2014, at the request of the Iraqi government, our parliament voted to engage in airstrikes against Isis/Daesh in Iraq. Isis/Daesh had entered western Iraq from eastern Syria. Coalition forces have helped local troops retake one-third of the territory lost to it. RAF planes are attacking its fighters in Iraq but are turning back at the border with Syria, a border which is meaningless to Isis/Daesh. This weakens our fight against Isis/Daesh’s terrorism.
An Isis/Daesh extremist has already murdered 30 British holidaymakers in Tunisia in June. We know that our security services have already thwarted seven planned attacks on British soil. The horrific attacks in Paris have highlighted the need for the UK to combat Isis/Daesh in Syria. We cannot continue to outsource the difficult bits of our foreign policy to the United States and France.
Some have blamed the attacks in Paris on western intervention in the Middle East. Stop the War claiming that Paris was ‘reaping the whirlwind’ of intervention is woolly thinking, reflexive anti-Americanism.
Russia has now forced our hand, launching airstrikes and asking us to back their ally Assad to defeat Isis/Daesh. By invoking Article 42 of the Lisbon Treaty, François Hollande is seeking the help that we, as signatories, are obliged to give. Friday’s attack was not an attack on Parisians; it was an attack on the freedoms we enjoy in the west. An attack on our way of life. Our solidarity must be more than tweeting our support and lighting a tealight.
The choices are difficult. But our inaction in 2013 has left us with no easy choices in Syria. David Cameron must publish a roadmap for peace which sets out the future of the Syrian state, a timetable for Assad to leave, powersharing, the path to democratic elections and protection for ethnic and religious minorities. Airstrikes must be part of a comprehensive strategy for the Middle East.
Isis/Daesh is a fascist organisation that must be defeated. The longer we leave it the harder it will be.
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Mary Creagh MP is a former shadow secretary of state for international development. She tweets @MaryCreaghMP
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Inaction can amount to action when it leads to the least worst of options. Feeling that we are playing a (tiny?) part in imprecise, unworked through consequences of (only?) wild bombing purely because it makes us feel righteous is the worst righteousness.
Does anyone contend that the poor, bloody people of Syria are better off now than before the civil war began, and we took sides? And does anyone contend that removing Assad makes any sense at all, when he was sitting on the lid of a bucket of snakes? Have we learned nothing of the ghastly consequences of removing ruthless dictators from muslim countries?
When will the right wing Blairites learn! Going blundering in to yet another middle east country, meddling and interfering in a country and culture we don’t understand, bombing indiscriminately is only going to make things! We need to support the Syrian Government and Iran and other regional countries to cut off supplies to ISIS, recognise that regime change, nor British troops on the ground is not an option. We need to listen to Jeremy Corbyn not warmongering David Cameron who is partly responsible for the anarchy and chaos in Libya.
Another article from Progress, that is shockingly devoid of insight and omitting any strategy likely to achieve a desirable and long-lasting resolution.
The civil war in Syria was encouraged and indeed, in some cases, sponsored by foreign powers , including: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, USA, UK, France and Germany. A combination of hubris and a dogged refusal to learn anything, from the previous misguided interventions in the region, that unfortunately appears to be a characteristic of many politicians, both here and abroad.
These same powers also opposed the extension of political plurality within Syria , in 2011/2012, restricting the number of presidential terms and removing the requirement for the President to be a member of a particular party! These reforms, although limited and considered by many to be only a tentative step towards democracy, were at least a starting point for potential negotiations, to end the conflict and achieve a political solution.
Despite the pressure from the West, not to participate in elections, coupled with death threats from the so-called ‘moderate rebels’, an absolute majority of the Syrian electorate defied these calls and voted for the changes which were then incorporated into the Syrian Constitution.
A huge mistake was made by the Western powers, who presumably thought that regime change was preferable and faster by violent means, because the factions they were supporting did not command widespread and certainly not majority popular support, contrary to the propaganda, disseminated by our government and others, at the time. The 2.2 million Christians in Syria, together with other minorities still see Assad as the least worst option and have formed militias to fight alongside the government.
Isis/DAISH are the consequence of previous and current mistakes in foreign policy and they exploit the opportunities provided. They have formed temporary alliances with many of the other (approximately 1500) rebel groups but there is much infighting between these groups, mainly over resources and the rights to loot or ‘tax’, in the regions under their control. To pretend otherwise is actually extremely “wooly thinking”.
The greatest obstacles to a political solution and negotiated end to the conflict are the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and our NATO ally Turkey. All three have facilitated the jihadists and supported groups defined as terrorist.
Turkey is the main conduit for weaponry and foreign fighters, its interests are not necessarily aligned with those of others wishing to defeat DAISH and it has expended far more effort and resources on attacking the Kurds. The allegation that Turkey supplied the sarin, used by the REBELS, according to UN investigator Carla del Ponte, will not disappear. This was raised again last month by Turkish parliamentarians but the Turkish government is opposing any further investigation, despite an apparently extensive audit trail and audio recordings of phone taps.
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I wonder if the truth will eventually emerge, following the current ongoing UN investigation? If it really does transpire, that the use of chemical weapons in Syria was in fact by rebel forces, with the connivance of a NATO ally (not yet proven) then perhaps this would be a wakeup call for all those MPs whose first instinct is to bomb, without much thought being given to the consequences and perhaps come to regret later?
I tend to agree with the previous comments . I like Mary Creagh generally .However the problem in Syria is that there is no Sunni controlled state in the immediate area since Iraq was starved ,humiliated and destroyed , .by our Western governments . Isis are very wrong ; but I understand the motivation . Unless we destroy their presence on earth , the problem will continue . A peaceful solution starting with a ceasefire and talks now might be the best solution .
Sadly ,our politicians live in the Westminster bubble ,each defending their power base . They are out of touch , and as always will fight any war to the death of every British Serviceman and Woman , let alone poor helpless civilians .
There is not a single enemy in the area and it seems unlikely that they can all be dealt with or dealt with one by one.
Airstrikes on their own will not be effective. Land cannot be occupied by bombers but only by troops on the ground. Airstrikes in support of an effective fighting force on the ground can change things. And that would be the Kurds. The Kurds are being bombed by Turkey – our NATO ally. That needs to be stopped.
ISIS are fascists you say there are some good socialists among the Kurds who should have our support.
Britain’s goals should not be Putin’s. I think his interest is in maintaining the western portion of Syria under Assad control and dependent on Russia. For the rest of Syria he’ll seek to ensure that none are strong enough to have a decisive victory. Hence the reason for having an ally on the ground who is an effective fighting force. But how likely are the Kurds want to carry through and liberate the whole of Syria in the face of escalating Russia opposing action?
So realistically Syria is lost as a single entity within the borders that existed before the civil war. There is a chance that the East and North may be stabilised and ISIS-free.
So that the power politics. What for the ordinary Syrian citizen? Anything we do will probably only change who suffers and who will be killed.
I shall be remaining as critical as ever of Assad, Putin, Iran and Hezbollah. I look forward to being called every name under the sun by people who, barely a week ago, were calling me every name under the sun because I did not want to nuke Assad, Putin, Iran or Hezbollah.
All sorts and conditions have been bombing Syria for quite some time now. And for what? At the very least, how would their battle against IS be assisted by the addition of what little remained of the British Armed Forces under this Government?
France is not at war because Paris was attacked. Rather, Paris was attacked because France was at war, as Beirut was attacked because Hezbollah was at war, and as a Russian airliner was attacked because Russia was at war.
The attack on Paris was a calculated attack on the beating heart of European high culture, on the capital of Europe’s most abiding state (the eastern border has shifted a bit from time to time, but there has always been France), and on the citadel of the Frankish Crusaders. In no sense were the Frankish Crusaders being attacked as purely an historical memory.