Paddy Ashdown has been writing in the Independent about this week’s developments and diplomatic stand-offs regarding Syria. He said that the west has allowed its influence to be diminished by successive failures:
We bluster in the UN, Washington and London about willing the ends, but we have nothing left but bombs to will the means. The levers to make things happen in Syria now lie in Moscow and Tehran – all we are left with is a bomb-release button at 30,000ft.
This is a diplomatic failure of inglorious proportions. Historic proportions, too, since the result will inevitably be another ratchet down in the West’s influence, already grievously diminished by our failures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. One would have thought that we would have learnt the lessons of those defeats. But, still – sadly, stupidly – when the West sees a problem in the world its first instinct is to bomb it.
He asks what some great foreign secretaries of the past would have done:
The great Foreign Secretaries, Canning and Castlereagh, would have known what to do. They would immediately – I mean three years ago – have started building counterbalances with Tehran, Ankara and yes Moscow too (despite Ukraine). There would have been sacrifices of course: an earlier and perhaps less congenial deal with Tehran; an uncomfortable acceptance that, though we share no values with Russia we do share a common interest in Syrian peace and defeating Sunni jihadism too; and a deal with Turkey would have been tough, because of Kurdish separatism.
So how do we rescue the situation?
We should be holding Russia to account for Assad’s barrel bomb excesses. We will have, for the sake of our own face, to leave Assad’s future hanging in a fog of diplomatic ambiguity. But we could – and should – move fast and purposefully to anchor Russian offers of help with Isis within a wider formal coalition which brings in Tehran and Ankara.
British aircrafts joining the action over Syria as part of that wider coalition, might make better sense than it does now. In these more fluid diplomatic circumstances there could be a role for protection zones or, perhaps most interestingly – not a no-fly zone – but a no-bombing zone.
You can read the whole article here.
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15 Comments
I agree with a lot of what of what Paddy Ashdown is saying here. However, I have doubts about the inclusion of Iran as part of the solution. Most of the current problems stem from giving too much credence and too much support to theocratic politics. The military involvement has been one calamity after another and much heralded claims of a breakthrough such as the Arab Spring have inevitably crumbled. There are no moderate Islamists any more than there were moderate wings of the Spanish inquisition. That is not the same thing as saying that there are no moderate Muslims, simply that once religion becomes the main point of political change then the result is often harsh theocratic systems.
I agree with Paddy that trying to militarily remove Assad right now is a folly. I know people talk about how bad he is, but what do we get from it? A war with Russia and Iran? Putin thinks Assad should have been protected because according to the UN he was Syria’s legitimate president and he feels justified by what happened to Libya and Iraq.
Two criticisms of Paddy’s article though. 1: he doesn’t clarify what he means when he says “the burning coal at the heart of the Middle East conflagration – Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.”. You can’t just say the route of the problems in the whole region are caused by Israel. There are people who believe in “no compromise with Israel” and the country feels threatened by these people. There would also be fighting in the region regardless, at the moment.
Secondly, as much as I believe in diplomacy to get rid of Assad, I think unilateral action is needed when it comes to direct threats such as militant extremist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda. These do not believe in compromise or democracy, so we either accept their rule or fight them. I admit, ISIS seem to be the big threat at the moment, but it is important not to get complacent about others.
Why is he always seemingly asked for his views as if he is the GRU of all GRU’s on foreigh policy.
Seems to me this is the crucial quote
“the moment that Isis moved into Syria, we should have realised that our game was up. We could either (perhaps) get rid of Isis or we could (perhaps) get rid of Assad. But we could not get rid of both simultaneously.”
It’s ridiculous to attempt to intervene in a civil war by fighting both sides at once.
Let’s go back to where it all started. In the late 19th century up to WW1 Imperial Russia had been casting eyes on on Middle East, largely under the control of an ailing Ottoman Empire. Indeed, the Czar’s armies were looking to extend influence in countries further east such as Persia, Afghanistan and even India.
When WW1 kicked off, the British, French and Russians had plans to carve up the whole area, mainly to get their hands on the oil that was becoming ever more important and which would make them less dependent on countries like the USA. So, Messrs Sykes and Picot were tasked with creating artificial states in the Region. When the war ended, with Russia no longer involved and the USA back in self imposed isolation, the French and ourselves had a field day. As the colonial scramble in Africa had drawn frontiers that cut across traditional tribal regions so the ‘states’ created by Sykes/Picot produced division on religious lines, a situation made far worse by the Balfour doctrine that allowed a homeland for the Jews to be created on disputed territory. No wonder, a century later, even more chickens are coming home to roost!
theakes
Perhaps because he has more track record in international relations than most other people? And actually trained as a diplomat rather than as a politician, like most of the House of Commons?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Representative_for_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina
‘ But still-sadly, stupidly- it’s first instinct is to bomb it’
Paddy Ashdown supported the bombing of Libya so I suppose that he includes himself and the LibDems in this! Do you think it was right to intervene in Libya now? It has not turned into the utopian dream you imagined has it? It seems to me that this is another example of collective amnesia.
Eddie Sammon,
I agree. The tendency to put Israel at the core of what’s going on is misguided and is basically an extension of the idea that just doing this one thing will make everything else click into place. To me the cause is actually the belief that any rebel group is better than any one party state. Since 9/11 we’ve gone from trying to remove a fundamentalist religious terrorist threat to the West to aiding religious fundamentalist topple regimes we don’t approve of elsewhere with no thought of the consequences. The result of this is chaotic factionalism and the rise of religious extremism in the Middle East as a violent political force and a sustained attack on personal liberty at home. We’ve come to believe that the fact that there is a Muslim majority in the Middle East is the same thing as support for political Islam in that region and mixed messages in the West.
I can’t see why Assads barrel bombs are bad but western cluster bombs are good.
This could have ended years ago if Assad had been allowed to crush the rebels but the west and its Wahhabi allies prevented this from happening by flooding the country with anti tank rockets and other heavy weapons that have been supplied to the jihadists.
That’s another thing I don’t get, why is it Wahhabi dictators good and secular dictators are bad?
I’m glad that Russia have shown real leadership and stepped in. Hopefully Syria, Russia and their Iranian and Lebanese allies will put and end to this conflict so the majority of Syrians who no doubt just want to be left alone to get on with their life’s can do so.
Fuelling a civil war by flooding a country with weapons is utterly immoral so the west have no right to leacture Russia or Assad on human rights.
Syria.There are only bad options.
The fact that Putin , Merkel and Hollande are meeting without Cameron underpins the nonsense that British possession of Trident gives us a place at the top table.
David Wallace,
I agree, sending more weapons to a civil war is always a bad idea…
However I am struck between the symmetry of hypocrisy we see in the world at present. We criticise Assad for dropping barrel bombs on civilians while turning a blind eye to our ally Poroshenko doing similar things in Donetsk, and to a lesser extent to Israel bombing Gaza. Meanwhile we arm rebel groups in Syria while attacking Putin for doing the same in Ukraine. To be honest I think it is high time we stopped trying to spread democracy to places that are not ready for it… There are no good options in Syria but our enthusiastic support for the rebels was a big mistake.
Meanwhile Putin may regret his view that an invitation from a ruler is enough to start bombing rebels if a more warlike future US President accepts Poroshenko’s plea to bomb rebels in Ukraine.. And we may all lurch nearer to a new world war…
Eddie,
I agree with you that Israel is now almost irrelevant to what is going on in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan Yemen etc, although Israel was a big reason for the radicalisation of Islam in the past. (and may well be in the future)
What we have now is much more akin to the 30 years war in 17th C Europe, one in which the sides were defined by different branches of the same religion, not a fight between different religions. We should be aware that every intervention the west has made in these conflicts has increased the chaos on which these warring factions thrive..
Putin has a different idea, as exemplified by Chechnya: ruthlessly suppress all the rebels and then put someone even more ruthless in charge to keep the peace. That is his model for Syria: restore order by dictatorship, and it may be the best Syrians can hope for, unfortunately
So, Putin is bombing the nice Syrian rebels. Nasty man.
Meanwhile, Americans are killing MSF volunteers and patients by bombing a hospital in Afghanistan. But it was, apparently, an accident. Even after they had been told what they were doing. Back to the moral high ground then? 🙁
In 1994 there were three countries guaranteeing Ukrainian integrity in exchange of Ukraine surrendering its nuclear arsenal: Russia, US and the UK. (Budapest Memorandum.) I understand it was Ukraine who asked for the UK. Russia invaded and US betrayed. UK was nowhere to be seen.
In 2015 the meetings with Putin about Ukraine, Syria and the rest is conducted by Angela Merkel and her appendage Hollande. If there is a more dramatic expression of a ” failure of inglorious proportions” I do not know it. Not only for the West as Paddy outlined, but even more so for the UK.