Christopher Meyer writes:
Bombing Syria is back.
Almost two years ago MPs gave David Cameron a bloody nose when they voted against his plan to launch air strikes with the US and France against President Assad of Syria.
This gave President Obama cover for declining also to take military action. President Hollande was left swinging in the wind, much to his irritation.
But that was then and this is now.
The civil war in Syria continues apace. Huge tides of humanity have fled the violence and are now washing up in places like the sordid migrants’ camps of Calais.
You might think that this was a compelling reason to revisit the decision of 2013 and take decisive military action against Assad.
You would be wrong. The facts have changed; and they have changed in Assad’s favour.
There has never been the least chance of toppling Assad and his Alawite clan (a branch of Shia Islam), so long as they continue to enjoy the support of Russia and Shia Iran.
There is no sign of that weakening. For Moscow and Tehran Syria is a vital asset in the power-play of the Middle East.
What has changed the calculation since 2013 is the irruption of Isil, the fundamentalist Sunni jihadist group. It seemed to come from nowhere.
But that was because we in the West were not looking.
Tony Blair may hotly deny it, as he did again on the anniversary of 7/7; but Isil as an idea and a movement has been building ever since the US/UK invasion of Iraq.
With the foolish disbanding in 2003 of the Iraq army and ruling Baath party, and Western-style elections which handed Iraq to a Shia ascendancy, the US and UK made a violent Sunni revanchism all but inevitable.
Isil sprang from the loins of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq at all.
Western policy is now in an utter tangle.
Michael Fallon, Britain’s Defence Secretary, is to his credit trying to iron out the incoherence of bombing Isil in Iraq and not in Syria.
But even if he succeeds in persuading the Commons that this is the right thing to do, it will not be enough to infuse our policy in the region with the clear-thinking coherence it needs.
That is because the fundamental question is whether we should be bombing at all – or trying, in vain so far, to stiffen the sinews of the Iraqi army against Isil.
If there is one lesson to be learnt from our interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq – reinforced by the tenth anniversary commemoration of the 7/7 atrocity – it is that the prolonged presence of Western militaries in Islamic societies serves only to swell the ranks of Muslims worldwide, who are violently hostile to our values and way of life.
The same recruiting sergeant is at work again today as the Isil columns fill with foreigners, including British Muslims, attracted by the idea of fighting a US-led coalition.
The Middle East presents a Rubik’s Cube of conflicting interests so complex that a consistent and coherent UK policy of intervention is actually impossible.
In Syria our goal is to remove Assad, against the interests of Iran. But Assad too is fighting our enemy, Isil.
In Iraq we support the Shia-dominated government. But it is to all intents and purposes a vassal of Iran.
Because the regular Iraqi army is so broken, it is the Iraqi Shia militias, with Iranian advisers, who are doing the bulk of the fighting against Isil.
For this reason the Sunni tribes have so far refused to fight Isilk in the way they successfully fought Al Qaeda with the Americans in 2006.
Whether we like it or not, we are in de facto alliance against Isil with Assad of Syria and with Iran, the implacable foe of our long-standing ally, Sunni Saudi Arabia [the answer to all claims that we cannot ally with this or that for human rights reasons: nowhere, but nowhere, is worse than Saudi Arabia].
The UK and its allies are caught inside two vices: a civil war across the Middle East between two branches of Islam; and the intense geopolitical and religious rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The perverse consequence is that we in the West are keener to defeat Isil than the Iraqi army and our Sunni Arab friends.
This is a recipe for unavoidable failure.
There is only one Western policy that could lay claim to coherence: to halt military action and let the region sort out its own problems.
This won’t stop Isil being a threat inside the UK. It will have to be fought through intelligence, policing and a level of domestic surveillance that some may find unpalatable.
Meanwhile, if Isil is able to expand further in the Middle East, won’t this unavoidably lead to the conclusion that our strategic ally in the region for the 21st century must be Iran?
Sir Christopher Meyer is former British Ambassador to the US and Germany and is a Senior Associate Fellow of RUSI.
Bombing Syria is back.
Almost two years ago MPs gave David Cameron a bloody nose when they voted against his plan to launch air strikes with the US and France against President Assad of Syria.
This gave President Obama cover for declining also to take military action. President Hollande was left swinging in the wind, much to his irritation.
But that was then and this is now.
The civil war in Syria continues apace. Huge tides of humanity have fled the violence and are now washing up in places like the sordid migrants’ camps of Calais.
You might think that this was a compelling reason to revisit the decision of 2013 and take decisive military action against Assad.
You would be wrong. The facts have changed; and they have changed in Assad’s favour.
There has never been the least chance of toppling Assad and his Alawite clan (a branch of Shia Islam), so long as they continue to enjoy the support of Russia and Shia Iran.
There is no sign of that weakening. For Moscow and Tehran Syria is a vital asset in the power-play of the Middle East.
What has changed the calculation since 2013 is the irruption of Isil, the fundamentalist Sunni jihadist group. It seemed to come from nowhere.
But that was because we in the West were not looking.
Tony Blair may hotly deny it, as he did again on the anniversary of 7/7; but Isil as an idea and a movement has been building ever since the US/UK invasion of Iraq.
With the foolish disbanding in 2003 of the Iraq army and ruling Baath party, and Western-style elections which handed Iraq to a Shia ascendancy, the US and UK made a violent Sunni revanchism all but inevitable.
Isil sprang from the loins of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq at all.
Western policy is now in an utter tangle.
Michael Fallon, Britain’s Defence Secretary, is to his credit trying to iron out the incoherence of bombing Isil in Iraq and not in Syria.
But even if he succeeds in persuading the Commons that this is the right thing to do, it will not be enough to infuse our policy in the region with the clear-thinking coherence it needs.
That is because the fundamental question is whether we should be bombing at all – or trying, in vain so far, to stiffen the sinews of the Iraqi army against Isil.
If there is one lesson to be learnt from our interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq – reinforced by the tenth anniversary commemoration of the 7/7 atrocity – it is that the prolonged presence of Western militaries in Islamic societies serves only to swell the ranks of Muslims worldwide, who are violently hostile to our values and way of life.
The same recruiting sergeant is at work again today as the Isil columns fill with foreigners, including British Muslims, attracted by the idea of fighting a US-led coalition.
The Middle East presents a Rubik’s Cube of conflicting interests so complex that a consistent and coherent UK policy of intervention is actually impossible.
In Syria our goal is to remove Assad, against the interests of Iran. But Assad too is fighting our enemy, Isil.
In Iraq we support the Shia-dominated government. But it is to all intents and purposes a vassal of Iran.
Because the regular Iraqi army is so broken, it is the Iraqi Shia militias, with Iranian advisers, who are doing the bulk of the fighting against Isil.
For this reason the Sunni tribes have so far refused to fight Isilk in the way they successfully fought Al Qaeda with the Americans in 2006.
Whether we like it or not, we are in de facto alliance against Isil with Assad of Syria and with Iran, the implacable foe of our long-standing ally, Sunni Saudi Arabia [the answer to all claims that we cannot ally with this or that for human rights reasons: nowhere, but nowhere, is worse than Saudi Arabia].
The UK and its allies are caught inside two vices: a civil war across the Middle East between two branches of Islam; and the intense geopolitical and religious rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The perverse consequence is that we in the West are keener to defeat Isil than the Iraqi army and our Sunni Arab friends.
This is a recipe for unavoidable failure.
There is only one Western policy that could lay claim to coherence: to halt military action and let the region sort out its own problems.
This won’t stop Isil being a threat inside the UK. It will have to be fought through intelligence, policing and a level of domestic surveillance that some may find unpalatable.
Meanwhile, if Isil is able to expand further in the Middle East, won’t this unavoidably lead to the conclusion that our strategic ally in the region for the 21st century must be Iran?
Sir Christopher Meyer is former British Ambassador to the US and Germany and is a Senior Associate Fellow of RUSI.
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