Fabian 2
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Introduction
One year ago – on March 18th 2003 412 MP’s voted for military action in Iraq and 149 voted against.
It was a divisive issue, now marred by unreasonable allegations of lying. Both sides had a strong case and we are all capable of exaggerating our arguments. That does not mean the protagonists are liars.
This pamphlet does not attempt to revisit all the arguments, as there is little new to be said. Instead we aim to put these arguments in the context of a policy for the left. The main charge against those opposed to the war is not that they had no case against military action; it is that they offered no alternative except a continuation of the previous 12 years of failed policies. Policies that may have contained Saddam Hussein but also contained the long-suffering Iraqi people with him and made it almost impossible to stabilise the region. Meanwhile the UN’s authority was constantly undermined.
The main reasons given by MP’s who spoke in favour of intervention on March 18th were:
The failure of Iraq to comply with UN demands and the fear that the organisation was slipping into irrelevance rather like the old League of Nations;
The need to bring some stability to the Middle East and achieve movement on the Palestine question;
The brutality of the regime and the impossibility of achieving change without outside intervention.
Weapons of mass destruction underpinned many of the arguments but were not central to the views of most MP’s. A number of us feared Tony Blair was in danger of boxing himself in on the issue. Initially he had made a much wider case for intervention but then became increasingly trapped in the WMD argument. I was not alone in warning him of this danger and can remember saying, “We had better find those weapons”. His over emphasis on WMD was a major tactical error and he has paid a high price for it.
Of the many people opposed to the war few would like to turn the clock back so that Saddam Hussein was still in power. A majority of the Arabs and Muslims in my area were against the war but it is significant that they would frequently say to me “ Don’t go to war – couldn’t you send in the SAS to kill him”. It may seem rather simplistic but it underlines the problem. How do we deal with psychopathic killers who take over a nation state, brutalise the people and destabilise the region? That is the question the left must answer.
By implication we also have to ask whether the UN presumption against regime change is acceptable in this day and age when faced with brutal and destabilising dictators. The left needs to acknowledge that in extreme cases regime change is not only politically justified but morally necessary.
Iraq was not the first time we have been in this situation in recent years. The military intervention in Kosovo was largely supported by the left without UN support. There are other examples from the past too. Tanzania intervened to remove Idi Amin without UN agreement. Vietnam intervened to remove Pol Pot without UN agreement India intervened to support the bid by Bangladesh to break free of Pakistan without UN support. Frankly I wish China had intervened in North Korea when a million people were being starved to death - and that is despite China’s rather dubious reputation on human rights.
When we don’t intervene we feel guilty. Who is really happy that we sat back and watched the genocide in Rwanda? The failure to intervene there had its roots in the abortive attempt to intervene in Somalia.
So why was Iraq so much more contentious? Part of the explanation lays in the way that President Bush and the Republican Party leadership tried to sideline the UN and their enthusiastic use of militaristic language. Donald Rumsfeld’s ‘shock and awe’ makes the British public and particularly those on the left, cringe in embarrassment.
While we may be shocked by the aggressive assertiveness of the new right in the USA we have only ourselves to blame if we can’t come up with an alternative policy to deal with dictators in the post cold war world.
The world community should have acted earlier when it first became apparent that Saddam Hussein had no intention of keeping the cease-fire agreement of 1991 or of recognising the subsequent UN resolutions based on the ceasefire. But we did not act earlier. Will we do so next time? The debate about intervention is usually between those who favour military intervention and those who don’t.
The left urgently needs to develop other policies between these two extremes.
The confusion on the left is highlighted by the concern about the legality of the war. Some lawyers wring their hands about the legality of acting on a UN resolution without a second resolution. But where were the lawyers when my Iraqi constituents were fleeing from Saddams genocide and torture after the 1991 ceasefire which required him to stop such practices? The legal argument would be more convincing if those refugees could bring an action against the UN for not enforcing their resolutions.
The reality is that international law is still evolving and if there really was a body of law to deal with these situations then Saddam Hussein would have been in prison years ago and many thousands possibly millions of people would still be alive.
Sovereignty, war and the left
Liberal societies especially on the left are always reluctant to take military action. War is rightly seen as a particularly serious step and one whose consequences are difficult to predict.
But there is another less convincing reason for this reluctance. While those on the left are happier talking about human rights and communities rather then the nation state, left-wingers are often covert nationalists. The nation state is still seen as sacrosanct – perhaps because we were brought up in the 19th. Century tradition of national independence which then translated into the UN and the decolonisation movement. The sovereignty of other nations became an article of faith for the left – whatever the consequences for the principle of universal human rights which we also laid claim to.
There is an analogy with domestic policy here. Until the post war period it was taken as given that an Englishman’s home was his castle. The man could assault his wife and children without provoking outside intervention except in the most extreme cases. On the other hand if he did this in a public place he could be restrained and arrested.
We have a similar approach in international relations. Iraq invades Kuwait and we intervene. Saddam Hussein attacks his own people in his own country and we pass resolutions – much as my parents would do when we passed a home where you could hear the screams of the woman and children being beaten. They would say, “It must be awful living there – I wonder why she doesn’t leave him”. It took us many years to reject that argument. Now we expect the abuser to be removed and the left is rightly proud of this change in policy and social attitudes. So why doesn’t it apply to the nation state?
In one sense the answer is obvious. It is as we have already said that the rule of law in international relations is still very underdeveloped and even if it wasn’t, the only world police force is the dominant power of the day. In our case the US. And wouldn’t life on the British left have been easier – indeed quite enjoyable – if the US had intervened without Tony Blair’s support? We could have complained bitterly about US arrogance and George Bush the cowboy while quietly saying, “Mind you it’s a good thing that Saddam Hussein has gone”.
If the left wants to be taken seriously on foreign policy then it needs to do better then this.
Britain, Europe and the USA
The impact of the British decision to support the US has caused major problems with the two EU powers of France and Germany. The French have a very clear view that Europe ought to be an alternative power base to the US. They have a view of the world that allows for a number of great powers to replace the hegemony of the US. Europe should be one of those powers. It is like an updated version of the Concert of Europe but on a world scale.
When the British indicated their support for George Bush it confirmed the worst fears of the French. Britain had proved the old Gaullist view that it wasn’t really committed to Europe and would, when the chips were down, be a Trojan horse for the US.
In a well-argued article in the Guardian, David Marquand (21.2.04) challenged the relevance of the so-called special relationship between Britain and the US. The special relationship is not entirely a political invention of successive British governments. It does have real roots in a shared language and culture. Marquand makes the point that the founding fathers of the US saw themselves as a new nation while the British saw them as rebellious children fleeing the family home.
There are some remarkable similarities between the behaviour of Britain as the World’s dominant power in the 19th and early 20th century and the US in the post 1945 period. It is not hard to picture George Bush as Lord Palmerston in drag!
These European perceptions however don’t address the issue of seriously failing states and there is little discussion on what can or should be done. The Bush administration for all its failings does have a clear view that these dictatorships are unacceptable.
Tony Blair believes it is in Britain’s interests to stay close to the US but he also believes this relationship should be used to in a way that enables Britain to be the key link between the US and Europe. His view of the world requires the US and Europe to be close and supportive allies. While Europe develops its political and military identity it is vital for Britain to be closely engaged with the US not just to influence them on matters like the Road Map for the peace process in the Middle East but also to prevent the US from becoming even more unrestrained and isolationist then they are now.
This is a perfectly laudable aim but it carries a real danger for Britain. At what stage do we put our European interests first? And in the context of Iraq is our influence sufficient to make a real impact on US behaviour in post conflict Iraq?
Although the US does listen to British views the dominant right wing philosophy in the US also conflicts with Labour values in Britain and with the Prime Ministers more sophisticated approach to world problems.
There are several examples of this. Guantanamo Bay and the treatment of suspected terrorists by the US suggest they have not learnt from the British mistake of internment in Northern Ireland. The US warned us then about the way our policy was counter productive and against the rule of law. They were right to warn us then and we are right to warn them now. But are they listening?
Similarly their lack of skill in peace keeping is very apparent. They have a war fighting army and one that lacks the training and philosophy of war prevention and peace keeping. It shows in Iraq.
Although I take the view that it was right and indeed long overdue for the international community to intervene in Iraq I do not think the preparation that went into it was sufficient. It is possible that if the US had been more engaged in the UN process we might have been able to agree an intervention policy. The leadership of the US is currently powerful enough to have swung the Security Council behind a more interventionist policy had they set about it in a more collegiate way. It might also have led to more effective post conflict planning.
These are fair criticism of both Prime Minister and President. But both Europe and the left here are vulnerable to the more serious criticism that they have no alternative proposals to deal with these situations. Containment is not just insufficient it is seriously bad for the stability of the region and for the welfare of the people.
The US has a very legitimate complaint about Europe’s desire to have the luxury of criticising US interventionism while calling on their help to deal with the essentially European problem of Kosovo. Ninety percent of the aircraft used in that campaign were American. Europe despite all its wealth and talk of integration could not have resolved the Yugoslav crisis without very significant help from the US. The French did not threaten to veto that intervention although it was less serious and more containable then Iraq.
Kosovo is part of Europe. Iraq isn’t. So why did some European states want US intervention in Kosovo but not Iraq? If containment was good enough for Iraq why wasn’t it good enough for the former Yugoslavia? These are difficult questions for Europe.
If Europe wants to be taken seriously in the US then we have to find a common defence policy that would allow effective intervention. Criticising the US may make many in Europe and on the left feel good but it doesn’t help to resolve the complex problems we face with collapsing and tyrannical states.
It does mean the left in Britain will have to be more determined to deal with dictators and less inclined to shout abuse at the US especially when faced with a choice between backing George Bush or Saddam Hussein. Knowing whose side you are on in politics is important and faced with a choice of keeping a dictator in power or removing him the choice ought to be clear even if there is a debate to be had about the time and manner of removing him.
The nature of failing states
We need to be clear about the nature of some of these regimes. There are crucial differences between states that show signs of emerging from dictatorship and ones that are held in the grip of a psychopathic killer. And let us not duck this issue. In any normal society Saddam Hussein would have been regarded as a psychopath and one of the characteristics of such personalities is that they rely on creating fear.
The more fear they create the more submissive the victims. Perpetuating fear becomes a matter of survival for them. That is why it is so important to stand up to them. It is also why they collapse either without resistance when faced with overwhelming power or lash out with all the force at their command. Prediction is not just difficult but dangerous. That’s why no one could be certain about WMD and Saddam Hussein.
Certainty is just not possible in these situations.
The aim of our policies should be the undermining not only of the credibility of the dictator but also and crucially his ability to maintain his grip on power and on his ability to dominate by fear. This is not an easy option. Many of these countries have got into difficulties because of corruption or internal political and ethnic differences. So maintaining the integrity of the state is a problem. The alternative however is at present to do nothing or to intervene by direct invasion.
Iraq – the cockpit of the conflict
The overoptimistic assessment of what post war Iraq would be like has led critics of the war to see it as a failure. The reality is that societies emerging out of dictatorship seldom if ever settle down quickly. The destruction of civic society by dictators cannot be reversed overnight.
Listening to some commentators you would think that the whole of Iraq was in chaos. In fact civic society is returning to Iraq and there are grounds for optimism. Just as people in the West underestimate the catastrophic effects of dictatorship on society so also they underestimate the desire for freedom and democracy.
There are many lessons to be learned from the failure to rebuild some of the most basic services quickly enough and to afford the necessary degree of protection. There is also a lesson to be learned about the dangers of disbanding a defeated army in the way the coalition did. To have ex soldiers out of uniform and out of work but knowing where the munitions were and how to use them was a serious mistake.
The real issue however is whether Iraq can become a stable, prosperous and free society. If it can, then the future of the Middle East will begin to look much healthier. The threat to the region will have dramatically diminished and the pressure for continuing reform will grow. If corruption and authoritarian government can be rolled back there is no reason why the region cannot begin to enjoy the wealth and stability of much of the rest of the world.
This is the challenge however and it is one the supporters of reaction have to defeat. So terrorist organisations will send volunteers to Iraq. Some of the fundamentalist groups within Islam will try and destroy any sense of unity and to create divisions between Sunnis and Shias. That is what the terrorist campaign is aimed at.
Stabilising the Middle East would do more to defeat terrorism and to bring prosperity to the area then any other development. At the centre of that lies the dispute between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. There is a growing awareness that the Road Map provides the only real way forward. To achieve that both sides need to move. There cannot be an imposed solution. Neither can there be meaningful.
Negotiations without a political process to drive it. In that respect and that respect only the dispute is similar to problems like Northern Ireland.
So what is needed to move it forward? If the attitude and policies of the two participants to the dispute is critical then the policies of the surrounding countries is also critical because they more then most have the political power to change attitudes and structures within the region. Israel is a democracy and it is wealthy and powerful not just because of US support but because it is a democracy with the rule of law and is relatively free of corruption. Sadly that is largely untrue of other states in the region.
The psychological effect on the region of September 11th and the war in Iraq is still working its way through but there are signs that some key Arab states most notably Saudi Arabia are making serious attempts to reform. I hope it is not too late.
The growing strength and unity of Islam is a new factor in world politics. The way Islam develops its political agenda is critical for the future of the world. Greater unity in the Islamic world could offer very real advantages but if some of the more fundamentalist and intolerant groups gain control then it could be a very destructive force in world politics.
The challenge to both Europe and the USA is whether they can assist this process without creating the conflict between Western Christianity and Islam that so many people fear. It is this factor which drives many on the left to take a more passive role in confronting dictators and terrorism in the Middle East. But that is not a real option. It is not just that oil is the driving force of the whole world’s economy but also that looking the other way does not lead the fundamentalists to a more passive role. The fact that these groups attack Hindu India and have involvement in Chechnya and in part of China suggests they have a universal agenda which has the USA at its heart but not exclusively so.
The struggle for the soul of Iraq has deep roots. Put in stark and simple terms, if Iraq is stabilised, peaceful and increasingly prosperous then in years to come historians will judge the military intervention to have been a success. In those circumstances it is likely to make a major contribution to stability in the region and to undermining support for terrorism. If it continues as an unstable, authoritarian regime then the region will continue to trouble the world and historians will judge the intervention to have failed.
The stakes could not be higher.
UN reform – and how to intervene earlier
If the left can only use Iraq as a stick to beat the Americans with (or the Prime Minister) then they will miss the enormity of the change taking place in world politics. It is a soft option for the left to carry on attacking the absurdities of Donald Rumsfeld and his new right colleagues. Unless we can admit that regime change is an acceptable policy option we are stuck with a policy of containment. The challenge is to find a way in which regime change can be legitimised by world opinion.
We need to launch a new policy of our own that would enable the world community to find more effective ways of intervening to save failing states or to remove brutal dictators. At present we are torn between two equally unattractive options - to intervene with military force or do nothing.
The Prime Minister in his speech of 5th March was right to question the way international law is operated at the moment. The question of failing states has also been discussed at the G8 summit and within the UN.
So how do we legitimise intervention and are there more options then presently used? The growing awareness that you can’t have political and economic stability without human rights and the rule of law provides us with an opportunity.
The great powers are today either established democracies or moving in that direction. The European powers, the US, India, Brazil, and Japan are all credible democracies with the rule of law. Although there is concern about Russia and China they appear to be moving in the same direction. This group of powers are likely to dominate the world scene for the foreseeable future. Can they be harnessed to the cause of intervention in seriously despotic regimes?
With a US President who was committed to working with the UN and with a serious commitment by the other Security Council members to dealing with despotic regimes it is not difficult to see the outlines of an interventionist policy that could work and which would only use direct invasion as last resort.
When the UN was busy passing 17 resolutions it had no intention of enforcing it could, if the political will had been there, have stepped up the pressure on each occasion that it passed a resolution that was not obeyed. A simple example would be the extension of the no fly zone over the whole of Iraq. A further extension could have been the destruction of key military establishments or units such as the Republican Guard.
These are at the extreme end of the options. Earlier options would include carefully targeted sanctions. They need to be carefully targeted because dictators have a nasty habit of protecting their own supporters from sanctions while using them as a weapon against the opposition groups. That is precisely what Saddam Hussein did and what Mr. Mugabe is doing now in Zimbabwe.
It is particularly important that at an early stage of gross human rights violations involving persistent and state endorsed torture to begin indictment procedures. If potential despots and their supporters recognise that in due course they could face an international court we could increase the chance of prevention. International law is beginning to recognise the power of indictment. If key leadership groups in collapsing states were indicted following warnings and investigations by the UN then it would, over time, have a deterrent effect and build up a body of law.
Shouldn’t we be campaigning for this with President Mugabe now? Are the rape and torture camps enough? Or shall we just wait to see how awful it gets and then march through London if anyone threatens to intervene? Or if South Africa intervenes as eventually it may have to, will we support that?
Regional intervention does need to be part of the solution. If the UN were willing to authorise intervention when a state is locked in tyranny or is collapsing then we might get the outlines of a world policing approach. It will for the foreseeable future depend on US support but increasingly neighbouring states can develop the political and military structures necessary for a successful intervention.
Let us look at the example of Zimbabwe. There is now ample evidence of gross human rights abuse including state sponsored torture, rape and murder. With growing starvation there is also evidence of the states control of food supplies to reward and punish the population. Surrounding states are now facing destabilisation by the growing influx of refugees.
So what should the lefts agenda be in these circumstances? The government to its credit has tried to put pressure on through the Commonwealth and the EU. But the left generally confines itself to turning a blind eye or, worse still, wringing our hands and engaging in self criticism because of past colonial policies. This is almost obscenely inadequate.
A policy that showed genuine socialist concern for the people of these countries would have to consider an interventionist strategy otherwise we are walking by on the other side with our ears and eyes covered.
Using Zimbabwe as an example we could envisage a process starting with debates at the UN and in the Security Council followed by visits of UN officials and heads of state chosen by the UN. Not dissimilar to what the Commonwealth did.
As the situation deteriorates the UN considers targeted sanctions and indictment procedures are started. These should include other key officials as well as the President and certainly including military and police personnel. Identifying the individuals accused of torture or of organising it could allow their names to go on the Interpol list.
UN observers could also be placed in the country and if access or mobility is denied then another step is taken towards more forceful measures. It was the failure of the UN to enforce the inspection regime in Iraq which gave encouragement to Saddam Hussein to think he could play cat and mouse with the world community.
There will come a point in time where the dictator will no longer co-operate with the UN but that creates a situation where the UN should consider tougher action. What that tougher action is will depend on the circumstances and especially the willingness to co-operate of regional states. Regional power groupings, NATO or the Security Council members would have to take the lead.
The UN history of controlling military operations is seriously inadequate so action would have to be led by relevant members but British intervention in Sierra Leone and US/French intervention in Haiti are examples of the way this could be developed.
Are these ideas unrealistic? In the immediate future the answer is probably yes. But if we are serious about our internationalist credentials then we have a duty to address these issues. We cannot continue to walk around with our fingers in our ears drowning out the screams of the tortured while we condemn those who intervene.
At present the left stands accused of defending the rights of the nation state over the human rights of the individual. It took the shock of the Second World War to give a giant push to the creation of the UN as a more effective successor to the League of Nations.
Iraq and the shock of September 11th should be the lefts call to action to take the next step forward and give human rights a higher priority then the nation state.
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