On Syria, may I put it to my right hon. Friend, first, that this is fundamentally a religious war between the Shi’a and the Sunni, which has raged within Islam for 1,300 years? Secondly, the Alawites, who are a branch of the Shi’a, will fight to the end, because they believe—and so does the large Christian minority in Syria—that they will be massacred if the Sunni overthrow the present regime. Thirdly, Russia will never allow the regime to be overthrown,
because its overthrow would mean a humiliating defeat for President Putin, who made his reputation by crushing the Sunni rebellion in Chechnya.