Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Defence

It is profoundly disturbing that the priorities of the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) are to give 30 seconds to Afghanistan and the rest of his speech to the Turks and Caicos Islands, but he must account for that. It is also profoundly disturbing that this country has been, for all practical purposes, almost continuously at war over the past 10 years—in Kosovo, Iraq and now Afghanistan. There has been no similar period since the end of the second world war in 1945 when that could have been said. There is, of course, a question about whether those have been wars of choice or wars of necessity. In my judgment, both Kosovo and Iraq, whatever the arguments might have been, were effectively wars of choice. Neither this country nor its allies had been attacked. We chose wisely or unwisely—I believe, unwisely—to launch military operations in both those countries. Whatever the criticism of those two operations, we should not allow that to be used to create an assumption that Afghanistan, too, is a war of choice, because in my judgment that is not the case. Not only did it originate with the slaughter of more than 3,000 citizens, including some of our own, in the United States of America, but it is often overlooked that the intervention in Afghanistan had the unanimous approval of the Security Council of the United Nations, and to have been able to have the support of Russia and China as well as of western countries is very unusual and demonstrates the unique circumstances in the case of Afghanistan. If Afghanistan was a war of necessity, however, that still gives rise to two other questions. Is it still a necessity that our military forces should be there? And can we win? Those are issues that I wish to address. Often one hears the suggestion that nobody can win in Afghanistan, and the example is used of the Soviet Union or the "great game" in the 19th century. That is profoundly mistaken. That does not guarantee that we will win, but it is an unwise historical argument. Unlike the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which was loathed by every Afghan, we are dealing with the Taliban insurgency, and even if the Taliban have some significant support among the Pashtun element of the population, it is worth remembering that that is only half the population of Afghanistan, and there is no evidence of any enthusiasm for the Taliban from the other half. It is worth remembering also that almost half the members of the Afghan national army, which is being created at this very moment, are from the Pashtun section of the population from the south of the country and represent that ethnic group. Let the House recall too that when the mujaheddin were fighting the Soviets, the mujaheddin had strong support not only from the United States but from Saudi Arabia and a range of other countries in the international community. The Taliban have no support of that kind. The terrible casualties that they have caused have not, for the most part, been in direct combat; they have been through improvised explosive devices or suicide bombers. One does not win a war that way. One can attempt to destroy the political will of the other side—that is the objective—but one cannot win a war. I am delighted that the right hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) is in his place. I read his article in The Guardian, in which he called for the withdrawal of British forces from Afghanistan. I greatly respect the right hon. Gentleman; he is a brave and courageous man and I hesitate to disagree with him, but I do. I believe that his article was wrong for a number of reasons. First, he used the argument that somehow by withdrawing from Afghanistan we could use the resources saved to improve the police and intelligence services in this country. He must know that to draw a link of that kind is profoundly unconvincing and unnecessary. I am no admirer of the present Government, but I would not for a moment argue that the intelligence and police forces in this country have been deprived of the resources they need for counter-terrorism because we have a war going on in Afghanistan. That is not convincing. Secondly, also in his article, the right hon. Gentleman hardly mentioned Pakistan; indeed, I do not think he mentioned it at all. He must appreciate that a withdrawal from Afghanistan would have massive implications for the very welcome attempts by the Pakistani Government to deal with comparable serious insurgency on their own territory. However, I thought the most astonishing thing about the right hon. Gentleman's article was that it became clear that he was calling for unilateral withdrawal by the United Kingdom, not by NATO as a whole, although no doubt he would want that. He was very honest about that, saying that a British withdrawal, which he was calling for, would have""momentous implications for UK foreign and defence policy. We would need to reinvent ourselves diplomatically and militarily. Treaties and international agreements would have to be renegotiated. In particular, relationships with our Nato partners, especially with the Americans—our most trusted and valued allies—would alter fundamentally."" Is he seriously suggesting that he wants to recommend that series of events to the House and the country? It would be a massive betrayal of our allies in the middle of a war if the United Kingdom were simply to withdraw. The right hon. Gentleman used an unfortunate phrase in the next paragraph of his article, when he said that we should be aware that our service personnel are being""killed or wounded in support of difficult outcomes and flawed regimes in"" what he called""faraway countries."" He may recall that the last person who spoke of faraway countries of which we know little was Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s, in circumstances that proved to be very serious indeed. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will reflect on some of the arguments he has used. There is a lot of interest at the moment in whether there should be a surge, and what decision President Obama will come to in that regard. I will not criticise the President for the time he is taking to reach a decision; I would rather that he spent eight weeks and made the right decision than eight days and made the wrong one. Indeed, I recall that a former President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, said:""If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four hours sharpening the axe."" That is appropriate. Given that the decisions President Obama has to take are profound, and given that he is getting conflicting advice on the issue, I think we can give him the right to take his time in reaching a correct judgment. What would be the significance of an additional 30,000 or 40,000 troops? I am under no illusions; I do not believe that that, by itself, would mean that we would win the war and defeat the Taliban. However, the House should appreciate that decisions to withdraw or increase troops have not just a military impact, important though that impact is, but can have a profound political and psychological impact on allies and, more importantly, the enemy. If we were to announce even the beginnings of a withdrawal, the Taliban would be entitled to say, "Why should we contemplate a political solution? Why should we contemplate any compromise in our aspirations? NATO and the west are about to withdraw anyway, so we can proceed on that assumption." When a very large increase in American forces is proclaimed, as I suspect it will be, it will bring military advantages in a number of parts of the theatre of operations. It will also send an unmistakable signal to the Taliban that the political will of the international community has not been lost—that we are prepared to see the matter out and reach a proper solution. That will dramatically increase the prospects of the Taliban—not necessarily its leadership, but major elements of that organisation—being willing to seek a route of political compromise. If they are willing to do that, we, too, can welcome such an outcome. I now turn to the strategy of the international community. I keep repeating the phrase "international community", because we are part of an intervention that is endorsed by the UN Security Council.