The Commons was clear, Islamic State presents a threat to us all
Strikingly absent from the Commons debate on whether Britain should join air strikes on Isis was any jingoism about our place in the world
Sarah Wollaston
Sarah Wollaston The Observer,
Sunday 28 September 2014
Tornado fighter aircraft at RAF Akrotiri Cyprus are armed for combat against Islamic State (Isis) militants in northern Iraq, 27 September. Photograph: Cpl Neil Bryden/RAF/MoD Crown Co/PA
On Friday, the House of Commons voted by an overwhelming majority to approve limited military action in Iraq; the atmosphere and the outcome were in stark contrast to last year’s debate on Syria. The conflict is no less complicated, there is still no exit strategy and certainly no promise that our intervention will deliver lasting peace.
What changed then to make so many, myself included, who were viscerally opposed last year support intervention this time? The civilian victims of chemical weapons and barrel bombs are no less deserving of international assistance. But the moral case for action and our national interest combined with a sense that we should not contract out this fight to others. Not only is there a clear legal basis for military intervention but parliament decided that our involvement could make a difference.
Islamic State (Isis) are waging war on humanity. Well-armed and with vast wealth at their disposal, they have rapidly advanced to control a territory greater than the size of Britain, extending to the Mediterranean and bordering Turkey. They don’t seek to hide their atrocities, rather to post them online. A genocide is unfolding in plain view; Yazidis, Christians, Shia Muslims, moderate Sunni Muslims and Kurds have been butchered in their thousands by this murderous cult. We are all witness to their acts of inhuman barbarity and the grotesque sexual violence used to terrorise and ethnically cleanse the ground ahead of their advance.
We could have chosen to look the other way, comfortable in the assertion that many of our previous interventions in the Middle East have worsened the plight of civilians. It is true that air strikes cannot fight the warped ideology that drives Isis. They can, however, degrade their capabilities and halt their advance. The uncertainty of the outcome of our military action has to be weighed against the certain consequences for civilian populations facing genocide if we do nothing. The objective of action is clear: to degrade and destroy Isis terrorists, their control and training centres and their lines of supply, and to support local Iraqi ground forces, allowing them to regain control.
There is also a clear legal basis for military intervention; a duty to protect under international law as well as the direct request for help from the Iraqi government. Unlike the situation in Syria last year, there is backing for action from the Arab League as well as military involvement from a coalition of Arab states including those with Sunni majorities. Isis present a clear threat to all regional states and it is essential that they take a leading role in this war, not least to counter any accusation that it is a western-led assault on Islam.
The UK will be playing a minor role, sending six Tornados, which will be limited to action over Iraq, and arming Kurdish forces. The Commons motion specifically ruled out a ground combat role. There was anger during the debate that excluding air attacks over Syria would critically limit our forces in their capability to counter Isis, but also a real concern that to engage over Syria would indirectly support the Assad regime and lack legitimacy. Ed Miliband asserted that it would be “better” to do so with the backing of a UN resolution. Undoubtedly true but unlikely in equal measure, and this will return to the Commons if our combat role needs to be extended in future.
Some argue that this is not the UK’s fight and that our involvement will only leave us at greater risk of terrorism at home. The Commons was clear, however, that Isis present a threat to us all, irrespective of our military engagement. Some 500 men and women have already joined their ranks from the UK alone, their numbers swelling with every Isis atrocity.
MPs were under no illusion that the fight against Isis could be won from the air. The complexity of the sectarian divide was spelled out in detail and we carry a heavy responsibility for arming Iraq’s previous genocidal dictator as well as for turning a blind eye to his use of chemical weapons. The power vacuum left behind in the wake of the Iraq war and a settlement that resulted in the oppression of the Sunni minority undoubtedly helped to prepare fertile ground for today’s extremists. Until local Sunnis feel confident that Iraq’s new leadership will protect their interests and security there will always be those who feel better off under Isis.
The urgent need for diplomatic efforts alongside military intervention could not be clearer. So, too, the need to cut off Isis’s financial backing. The main source of their funding was initially wealthy Gulf individuals but as they expanded they territory so too they have swelled their coffers. Organised crime, including oil smuggling to the Assad regime in Syria, protection rackets, bank robberies and ransom payments now generate an income of around $2m per day. International efforts have to cut off those lines of supply if there is to be any chance of defeating Isis in the long term. In August, the UN security council passed a resolution specifically aimed at blocking both direct and indirect funding to Isis but, without Russian support, stronger resolutions backing military intervention, including over Syria, look highly unlikely.
Strikingly absent from last week’s Commons debate was any jingoism about Britain’s place in the world. Following parliament’s decision to block military intervention in Syria, there were dire warnings that the UK was diminished, if not finished, as a credible world power. There is now an acceptance that our soft power punches above our military weight but nevertheless that we can make a difference in joining the international effort to defeat Isis. The government pledged to continue to prioritise humanitarian aid and diplomatic efforts alongside military action. Since the crisis began, the UK has provided £23m in aid in addition to ongoing assistance for Syrian refugees. There was also debate about the best way to tackle extremism at home and the role of the Prevent programme.
Perhaps one of the strangest phenomenons has been that women from the UK have chosen to join Isis. Strange, given that Isis have declared war on women. For all their warped notions of female honour, they deploy systematic rape and sexual slavery as a weapon of war against women and girls, and reserve a special hatred for women in public life. Last week, armed Isis thugs kidnapped Samira Salih al-Nuaimi from her home in Mosul, Iraq. A respected human rights lawyer, she was tortured for five days, tried in a kangaroo court and publicly killed for defending women’s rights.
Across the territory controlled by Isis, women are now subject to vicious beatings for showing their faces in public. Perhaps those stupid enough to be drawn to the flames should do their homework before joining their Islamist fantasy; they do not deserve our sympathy. If we allow disillusioned British nationals to return, it should be to face justice for their role in supporting Isis’s crimes against humanity.
Sarah Wollaston is Conservative MP for Totnes
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