The Commons Have Voted Against War With Syria

[Gromit]

David Cameron's plans for war have been rejected in a House of Commons vote tonight. The Hovernment have lost control of its own foreign policy and Dave has been dealt a humiliating defeat, which will embarrass him abroad.

Common sense prevails?

[LazyGun]

I do not think Kosovo can be cited as a justifiable precedent, not least because what is being envisioned here is a punitive action for the use of chemical weapons, not a military attempt to change the balance in the civil war that is going on in Syria.

The US and the UK cannot go around claiming moral authority to be the world police, sanctioning military adventures into sovereign countries on the pretext of humanitarian intervention.All to often there is more than a hint of a suspicion that the intervention is out of self-interest rather than anything noble It sets a dangerous precedent, apart from being illegal according to all the various international treaties.

Our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan should be a salutary lesson, one we should heed.There is no military option or objective that would bring the brutality and obscenity to an end, short of occupation.And I doubt most Syrians would welcome such an intervention.Couple all of these factors with a lack of international consensus and you have a recipe for the worst of all possible scenarios.

You cite Kosovo and Sierra Leone as precedent. There are plenty of other conflicts and plenty of other countries where the civilian population are treated horrifically, unyet we do not deem it necessary to intervene there.So why Syria, why now?

Again - why is a breach of the international chemical weapons ban ( although Syria is not actually a signatory to that act) any worse than the consequences to civilians of the deployment of napalm, and uranium depleted shells by the US military in Iraq?

What military objective can you envision that would result in Assad being punished, the civil war halted, and the civilian population saved?

The humanitarian consequences of military intervention could result in a far worse situation. Far greater fatalities, far greater displacements and refugees.

[jim360]

Yes, I did discover that Syria hadn't signed up to the CWC, but they are signed up to the Geneva Convention that prohibits the use of Chemical weapons, if not their storage and transport.

As to the last thought, "...military intervention could result in a far worse situation," I just find that hard to believe. What is going on in Syria is already far worse than it should have been, had we intervened earlier. Now is only the time because we are already too late, in my opinion anyway. Again, there's nothing special about Syria except for the feeling that we can do something and therefore that we should. Intervening elsewhere -- well, I'm a bit of an interventionist when it comes to foreign policy, so if there's a moral case for intervention, and if it has a prospect of improving the situation, I'd be in favour. (I suppose this makes me a Blairite.) This view may have been discredited by Iraq and Afghanistan, but I can't help but feel that this was because in those two countries the intervention wasn't done "properly", that a better job of rebuilding the country and we would be hailing them and the policy as successful. So, even though in practice intervention doesn't always work, I don't think that's because the principle is wrong. And Isolationism doesn't work, either. If we stay out of Syria there is just as much reason to worry that the situation will deteriorate. There's no sign, for example, that Assad if he wins will go easy on the losers.

The mission I envisage isn't one where we take a particular side. It's now too late for that, anyway. Rather, it should be something along the lines of a peacekeeping mission coupled with real efforts to force both sides to the table. I don't see that this can happen as long as Assad -- or indeed the rebels -- can be confident of winning the Civil War so that he has no need to negotiate anyway.

It's now up to France and the US to see what they choose to do. If they end up not intervening either, well, we'll never find out if intervention would have worked. But, again, I struggle to see how it would have made things worse.

[grumpy01]

Just read Mikey's comment about Boris Johnson having a smile on his face this morning.God help us if that buffoon ever gets anywhere near Downing Street.

[LazyGun]

This seems quite a good article to me on the dangers of outside military intervention in this specific instance.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-28/fitzpatrick-syria/4918406

More generally, military intervention may exceptionally be morally justifiable, but only if you have the sanction of the UN and a degree of international consensus. The problem then of course becomes one of - when do you intervene? At what point in a developing conflict?

Its time that the US and the UK recognise that we no longer have the power, the duty, the resources, the obligation or the right to attempt to militarily enforce our values within the developing world. Only in the most exceptional circumstances, where there is a clear and conflict resolving objective should it be countenanced, in my opinion.

Tragic though it is, military intervention by outside forces should very definitely be the option of last resort.

[Zacs-Master]

Very well summed up Lazy Gun.

[humbersloop]

I'd guess both Russia and Iran will be leaning pretty heavily on Assad over any future use of chemical weapons.

Iran in particular needs no lectures from the west on how vile they are: didn't the US provide Saddam with military intelligence on Iraqi troop movements that allowed Iraq to pinpoint sarin attacks? Using weapons supplied by western pharmaceutical companies??

And I do wonder where this lot came from, there are no clean hands in any of this.

[humbersloop]

^*Iran to use

tuts

[janbee]

Quite right too. We should keep out of Syria. If we have to send aid, and I think we must, then it should be in the form of medical supplies, tents etc. It's up to us to put pressure on the likes of Russia and China and hope that THEY will, at last, get some sense and stop backing Assad. It'll never happen of course.

[jim360]

Well I can't agree with all of that, LG. Still, thanks for the discussion.

[mikey4444]

Thanks Jim for the napalm atrocity link...couldn't find this morning.

Just proves what I have been saying all along. The UN is driving about in Syria, trying to find evidence, the UN itself in NY is up in arms about the Syrian regime and the free world governments are meeting to discuss what to do. All this and still Assad thinks its OK to bomb a children's playground.

And we should continue to try to have talks with this butcher ?

[emmie]

where is your 100 percent proof that chemical weapons were used and if that is the case what is to stop this disparate band of rebels from using the same ploy, to discredit Assad and his regime.

[emmie]

he may already be beyond the pale, but until the rebel uprising, what problems were there? His father was a despot, the perceived wisdom was at least a while back is son was more progressive, what has changed if that is also the case. Not to forget that many of these rebels have a totally different agenda from just toppling Assad, and if he does go eventually, what, who will take his place, won't it be all out war...

[naomi24]

Whether or not David Cameron is a public school boy is irrelevant. The purpose of interceding is to improve the situation, and I don’t think our intervention would achieve that. Had Cameron taken the decision to go into Syria without putting it to parliament, he would have been condemned as another Prime Minister taking us into a war we don’t want. Quite rightly, in my opinion, he put it to the vote – and parliament voted. He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.

[mikey4444]

The difficulty naomi is that he put it to the vote before the UN team have given their report. He should have waited until at least next week.

[jim360]

I was about to say something similar, mikey -- wonder if maybe Cameron might have been better to wait a week or so. As it is, we may have shut the door too early.

[naomi24]

Mikey, had he waited, do you think the result would have been different? Personally, I don't.

[jim360]

The margin of victory was extremely narrow, so maybe more information would have tipped the balance to have waited a week or so. We'll never know, now. Unless there is a new development that ends up making the case for intervention stronger still.

[mikey4444]

I think that it might have been different naomi, but I appreciate that opinions on this will vary. However, we will never know now will we ? In his rush to appear to be statesmanlike, Dave has acted rather too hastily. His attempt at his own little Falklands moment has rather backfired in his face.

Not sure Dave has come out of this very well. This weekends opinion polls may give us a clue. As I have said, Boris is waiting in the wings with a tad broader smile on his face than he had last week.

[Gromit]

I agree with naomi24.
The vote would be the same if it had have been taken next week. The UN invesigators will only confirm (or not) that a chemical weapons attack has taken place. It will not be able to say who actually used them with any certainty. If anything, if the vote had been taken after the UN offers no proof, the chances are that Cameron's defeat would have been even greater.

[naomi24]

Mikey, you – and others - are making this all too personal against Cameron and that is clouding the issue. This is a serious situation that shouldn’t be about political point scoring. Cameron has done what he thought was right – he put it to the vote – and although, presumably, the outcome wasn’t what he initially wanted, he couldn’t have been fairer than that. No one wants to see innocent people die, so yes, there is a moral issue here – but it isn’t one that we can remedy because we are dealing with a mindset that is totally alien to ours and with people that, however much we try to help them, will remain our enemies. The fact is our elected politicians know that the British public is sick of our servicemen and women dying for lost causes, they know the British public is sick of the constant threat – and more – from radical Islam for which life is cheap and human beings are expendable, and they know the British public is sick of being led into wars that are unwinnable – and this, if the vote had gone the other way, would have been yet another. This is a hopeless cause. There is no solution that we can offer - and the sooner we acknowledge that and put the interests of our own country and our own people first, the better.