Tag Archives: iraq

Opinion: Foreign policy lessons for the Lib Dem approach to Iran

By Joe Bourke | Published 22nd December 2011 - 4:26 pm

The Green movement in Iran after the presidential elections in 2009 was the first of the recent popular backlashes against entrenched corruption in authoritarian regimes. That was followed by the Arab spring, continuing upheaval in Egypt and now a similar movement in Russia and elsewhere.

At the time of the electoral protests in Tehran, Iranian staff at the British embassy were being accused by the Iranian authorities of treason and fomenting unrest. There was only muted support for the reform movement in Iran from the international community.

Last month we saw the British Embassy in Tehran ransacked and vandalised

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Posted in Europe / International, Op-eds | Also tagged arab spring, foreign policy, iran | 20 Comments

A welcome shift in international interventions

By Mark Pack | Published 28th November 2011 - 10:55 am

News of the Arab League’s sanctions against Syria brings to mind the Curate’s Egg – good in parts. That such sanctions are unprecedented shows a welcome increase once more in the Arab League’s willingness to stand up to dictators where mass violence against the population is involved. (Other dictators are another matter of course.) After the steps in Libya and now Syria, the Arab League is looking rather more like a body that does good rather than excuses evil.

That transformation only goes so far. For it has taken months and around 3,500 deaths to bring about sanctions which are …

Posted in Europe / International, Op-eds | Also tagged benjamin valentino, foreign aid, syria | 1 Comment

Nick Clegg: Learning the lesson of Iraq, planning the peace

By Helen Duffett | Published 22nd August 2011 - 2:54 pm

Nick Clegg has given a speech on the Arab Spring today at the British Council. He also included a passage on last night’s dramatic events in Libya:

The advances made by the Free Libya Forces in Tripoli would have been unthinkable just a few months ago. Unimaginable, even, for the generations of young Libyans who have never known a world without Qadhafi. Now, that world is within their reach. The momentum for change is breathtaking and, for the cynics who said change wasn’t possible, who had written off the Libyan uprising, written off the Arab Spring, clearly, they were wrong. The

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Posted in News, Speeches | Also tagged arab spring, colonel gadaffi, libya, nick clegg | 10 Comments

The Independent View: What the Chilcott Inquiry has missed – the role of oil in the Iraq war

By Greg Muttitt | Published 3rd May 2011 - 10:23 am

While change sweeps the Middle East and fighting escalates in Libya, the Chilcott Inquiry continues to consider the lessons of the Iraq war. The Inquiry has taught us more about the timing, process and legality of key decisions, but the elephant in the room remains the role oil played in those decisions.

“The oil conspiracy theory is honestly one of the most absurd when you analyse it,” said Tony Blair in February 2003. His protestations were sufficiently effective that in media and parliamentary debates, raising the oil issue became a sure-fire route to losing credibility. And so Chilcott, who …

Posted in Op-eds, The Independent View | Also tagged chilcot inquiry, tony blair | 2 Comments

Nick Clegg lays down five principles of intervention – but doesn’t explain the Ivory Coast

By Mark Pack | Published 31st March 2011 - 8:55 am

In a major foreign policy speech in Mexico this week, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg laid out five reasons why intervention in Libya was the right course to take and different from Iraq. However, applying those five reasons to the Ivory Coast raises the question why it is being treated so differently from Libya.

In his speech, Clegg said that Libya different from Iraq because:

First, the Libyan action is unambiguously legal. Iraq was not.

Second, there is a clear humanitarian case for intervention in Libya. In Iraq the case rested solely on the danger posed by weapons of mass destruction, a

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Posted in News | Also tagged featured, ivory coast, libya, nick clegg | 40 Comments

Opinion: Why Lib Dems should reject the doctrine of liberal interventionism

By David Thorpe | Published 26th March 2011 - 11:46 am

If the regular politics of coalition is a walk in a minefield, the Libya crisis presents Lib Dems with a walk in a minefield while being haunted by a pair of malevolent ghouls.

Those twin ghouls are ghosts of conflicts past, conflicts where Britain intervened and expedited disaster, such as Iraq , and the countries where the UK sat on its hands, and watched disaster unfold, such as in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

There are a number interesting, and from a Lib Dem point of view welcome, feature of the debate concerning the possibility of the western intervention in Libya, …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged liberal interventionism, libya | 42 Comments

Nick Clegg on Libya: “This is not Iraq”

By Helen Duffett | Published 18th March 2011 - 6:46 pm

From the BBC:

Nick Clegg has voiced his support for possible military intervention in Libya, saying that any action would be carried out in order to “uphold international law”.

The deputy prime minister, whose Liberal Democrat Party opposed the war in Iraq, said: “This is not Iraq. We are not going to war”.

His comments came after Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed that UK forces would join an international operation to enforce a UN resolution which demands an end to attacks on Libyan civilians.

For the full story, and a video of the BBC’s interview with Nick Clegg, see the BBC website.

Posted in News | Also tagged david cameron, libya, nick clegg | 58 Comments

Blair criticised by top civil servant for keeping Iraq legal advice from Cabinet

By Mark Pack | Published 29th January 2011 - 10:55 am

The Guardian reports:

The country’s most senior civil servant … said the cabinet should have been told of the attorney general’s doubts about the legality of invading Iraq before Tony Blair went to war.

“The ministerial code is very clear about the need, when the attorney general gives written advice, the full text of that advice should be attached [to cabinet papers]“, Sir Gus O’Donnell told the Iraq inquiry.

The clear implication of his evidence is that Blair breached the code of conduct ministers have a duty to uphold.

You can read the full story here.

Posted in News | Also tagged gus o'donnell, tony blair | 3 Comments

Ed Miliband’s new-found opposition to the Iraq war: what his voting record shows

By Stephen Tall | Published 29th September 2010 - 9:27 am

Ed Miliband was not an MP in 2003, when Labour and Conservative MPs voted en masse to approve the British invasion of Iraq: so we do not know how he would have voted if he had had the opportunity.

The Ed-supporting New Statesman has been keen to promote his anti-Iraq war credentials — see for example their third-hand hearsay evidence here — but there appears to be nothing on the public record to back up his claim.

We are left, therefore, with Ed Miliband’s voting record in the one full Parliament in which he has served. Take a look at the new Labour leader’s voting record in the House of Commons, as recorded by PublicWhip.org.

As you can see, Mr E. Miliband has a proud 0% voting record on the issue of ‘Iraq Investigation – Necessary’. There were 10 separate votes in the House of Commons in the period in which he has been an MP: in not a single one of these did Mr E. Miliband take the opportunity to make clear, or even hint at, what he now so sincerely believes: that the Iraq war was wrong.

Posted in Op-eds, Opposition watch | Also tagged ed miliband, publicwhip.org | 16 Comments

The Independent View: Britain should move ahead in Iraq and Kurdistan

By Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman | Published 15th September 2010 - 2:18 pm

The Lib Dems are proud of their internationalism. It was one thing to oppose the intervention in Iraq and to continue as mistakes after the fall of Saddam were laid bare, but Iraqis like myself are keen to see your party develop its policy seven years later towards Iraq and Kurdistan, the region where I come from which is the stable, secure, commercial gateway to Iraq and Britain’s ally. The key question now is how can the LibDems support the Iraqi political process and ensure that Britain isn’t left behind other European countries in business, cultural and educational exchange with …

Posted in Conference | Also tagged kurdistan | 2 Comments

How the Westminster Village media is still struggling with concept of coalition

By Stephen Tall | Published 21st July 2010 - 6:40 pm

It can be surprisingly easy to excite some journalists. Today is a case in point. Nick Clegg stood in for David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions. During his exchanges with Jack Straw (who was standing in for Labour’s Harriet Harman), the Deputy Prime Minister referred to the invasion of Iraq as “illegal”.

To most people watching this is not a surprise. The Lib Dems’ opposition to the Iraq war, which was supported by both Labour and the Tories, is pretty well-documented, I think it’s fair to say. The fact that the Lib Dems and Conservatives have reached a coalition agreement does not alter the past, nor does it alter politicians’ individual views. Why should it?

And yet the response from some journalists has been to label this a “gaffe” – a term otherwise known as a politician saying something he believes which a journalist hopes to be able to spin into a story.

Indeed, it’s interesting to see how a story like this can develop.

Posted in Op-eds, PMQs | Also tagged featured, james forsyth, jonathan freedland, journalism, nick clegg, paul waugh | 56 Comments

Labour misled Britain over Iraq role in terror threat – Farron

By The Voice | Published 20th July 2010 - 6:38 pm

A party news release hits The Voice’s inbox:

Commenting on Eliza Manningham-Buller’s evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry, in which she said the conflict in Iraq ‘substantially’ increased the threat to the UK from international terrorism, Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, Tim Farron said:

“This is a shattering blow for Labour’s claim that the Iraq war did not increase the terrorist threat to Britain.

“We already knew that this was a disastrous war for our own brave service personnel and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Now we have the head of MI5 at the time saying …

Posted in News | Also tagged eliza manningham-buller, tim farron | 17 Comments

“Labour is shunning gay Iraqis, asylum seekers”

By Mark Pack | Published 28th April 2010 - 2:20 pm

That’s the headline on a comment piece run by Pink News:

As he launched Labour’s international LGBT manifesto last Wednesday, foreign secretary David Miliband made one howler, echoed by another in the manifesto’s text.

He said: “Under Labour the UK will continue to be a beacon of hope for LGBT people.”

This delusion sounded a lot like Home Office minister Phil Woolas’ article last year, when he wrote that he was proud of the attendees of the London Pride march who’d found sanctuary in the UK – never mind that his office would have refused them and fought tooth-and-nail to remove them.

The pair

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Posted in News | Also tagged david miliband, gay rights | 6 Comments

LDVideo Easter Saturday special: Lib Dem leaders at PMQs

By Stephen Tall | Published 3rd April 2010 - 10:50 am

Welcome to this latest LDVideo instalment, and today as a special holiday treat we’re highlighting three political video clips showing Lib Dem leaders on top form at Prime Minister’s Questions.

First up, is Ming Campbell. Now Ming didn’t always have the happiest time at PMQs, but there were times when he hit his stride perfectly, and this was one such occasion, on 24th January 2007, when shaming Tony Blair’s failure to debate in the Commons whether troops should be withdrawn from Iraq:

(Also available on YouTube here).

Secondly, how could we forget Vince Cable‘s starring turn as acting leader? Certainly Gordon ‘Mr Bean’ Brown will never forget it:

Posted in YouTube | Also tagged gordon brown, gurkhas, ming campbell, nick clegg, PMQs, tony blair, vince cable | Leave a comment

Daily View 2×2: How to make your own moving Lego barchart

By Mark Pack | Published 28th March 2010 - 9:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 9am. It’s time for some serious Lego action, but first the news.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

No longer a hustings virgin – Keith Angus campaigning in Hackney North
What a great way to spend my Birthday, even more campaigning! – Qurban Hussain in Luton South

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

Landmarks go dark, millions unplug for Earth Hour

Posted in Daily View | Also tagged ayad allawi, earth hour, nuri al-maliki | Leave a comment

Tag Archives: iraq

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

2 Big Stories

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