The arguments against bombing Syria are compelling
One of us is a member of the Labour party and the other is a Conservative. We have our differences, but both agree that bombing Syria under present circumstances would be a high-risk and pointless endeavour which should be rejected by the House of Commons, if the prime minister unwisely seeks to put it to the vote.
Bombing Islamic State (Isis) is certainly not wrong in principle.
Britain is already doing that in Iraq at that country’s request. The
question is, why extend this to Syria?
The government has utterly failed to come up with any convincing
rationale, merely saying that we cannot leave it to the Americans to
carry the burden.
Yet, our effort in Iraq is only about 5% of total bombing missions.
With the best will in the world, extending this scale of effort to Syria
would make little difference. If we feel duty-bound to take on a bigger
share of the burden, why not take up more of it in Iraq? It is not as
if bombing there had been spectacularly successful and additional
efforts in Iraq were unnecessary.
The truth is that, historically, aerial bombardment usually fails to
be decisive unless it supports credible ground forces. In Syria, apart
from Kurds in limited areas, there are no credible, non-Islamist ground
forces other than President Assad’s.
Extending our efforts to Syria would be of marginal utility at best.
This is partly because the UK government has set itself against
coordination with the Syrian army or the Russians,
which hobbles our military from the outset. The government is in denial
that intervention in Syria means deciding which is the lesser of two
evils, Assad or the Islamists, and acting accordingly. If the government
is not prepared to face up to this hard reality – a reality that does
not apply in Iraq – then we should stay out of Syria completely.
The main reason for holding back on Syria, however, is not that it
would be futile but that it would be extremely dangerous. Can we be sure
that the prime minister would not seek opportunities to extend the
bombing to the Syrian army as well as Isis? After all, we are constantly
told that parliament was wrong to prevent the bombing of the Syrian
army in 2013, and that it still remains essential to remove Assad.
Al-Nusra Front fighters fly Islamist flags in Aleppo. Photograph: Fadi Al-Halabi/AFP/Getty Images
The government does not accept that its preferred “moderate” forces
are a fantasy and that a jihadi victory would be the only outcome if
Assad were overthrown – with all the biblical-scale horrors which would
flow from that for the Christians, Alawites, Shia and other minorities,
as well as secular Sunnis. The Russians are criticised for concentrating
their fire on the non-Isis rebels, even though this category includes
groups like the powerful al-Nusra Front, an affiliate of al-Qaida. With
the removal of Assad, groups like this would be like vultures at a
feast. No serious analyst argues that the handful of “moderates” would
be a match for the jihadis.
It is claimed that the Russians are holding back on bombing Isis in order for this terror group to prosper. But the Russians seem to be focusing on al-Nusra and other jihadis because
these are the groups most engaged with the Syrian army in its
heartland. Isis is active mainly in the east and north-east, which the
undermanned Syrian army has more or less abandoned.
There is a serious danger of deliberate mission creep. Before action
began in Libya in 2011, MPs were assured that bombing operations would
be limited to creating a no-fly zone to protect the citizens of
Benghazi. As soon as the vote went through, operations began in order to
overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, with the result that Libya is now a
playground for Islamist radicals – including Isis. It is only too easy
to imagine this technique being applied to Syria – for example, to
police “safe havens” – almost certainly leading to dogfights with Syrian
military aircraft and thence to open warfare with the Assad regime.
This would result in enormous risks for the RAF, flying in the same
skies as Russian aircraft whose mission is to ensure the victory of the
Syrian army. It is not at all reassuring to hear “reliable, high-level
sources” telling us that RAF pilots have latitude to attack Russian
aircraft when they feel threatened. What about possible
misunderstandings, accidents or even deliberate “false-flag” operations
designed precisely to engineer such an incident? Has all this been
properly thought through? We see no sign that it has.
If the gains from the proposed intervention were likely to be
considerable – for example, if we were asked to support credible, local,
non-Islamist ground forces – or if we were acting in this way because
it was forced on us, some risk would be worth taking. But that is
definitely not the case now. Our intervention would have only a minimal
effect even under the most optimistic scenarios.
In short, the arguments against bombing are compelling. If the prime
minister is wise he will use the Russian intervention as a reason not to
proceed, rather than risking a second defeat on an issue of war and
peace in parliament or, at best, a pyrrhic victory. • Peter Ford was ambassador to Syria
2003-06. Julian Lewis MP is chairman of the defence committee, but is
writing here in a personal capacity
No comments:
Post a Comment