UK Parliament / Open data

Iraq: Coalition Against ISIL

Proceeding contribution from Diane Abbott (Labour) in the House of Commons on Friday, 26 September 2014. It occurred during Debate on Iraq: Coalition Against ISIL.

When it comes to this military intervention in the middle east, we do not have to look in the crystal ball; we can read the book. I am all too familiar with the history of our last military intervention in the region, so I will not support the motion in the Lobby tonight. It is totally disingenuous of colleagues on either side to say that this is a choice between acting and not acting. It is a choice between what sort of action we take—whether we place the emphasis on these military interventions, which are in some ways for show, or on humanitarian and diplomatic work and, above all, on putting pressure on the great powers in the region to step up.

There is something that no one has mentioned: it is quite clear from what ISIL has done in filming the beheadings, putting them on YouTube and ensuring that they have English voice-overs that it is seeking to incite us to bomb. Why does that not give people pause? ISIL wants this to happen because it will make it the heroic Muslim defender against the crusader.

I do not need to repeat that air strikes on their own will not win a war against ISIL. We will need ground forces. We know that the Iraqi army is wholly inadequate. Inevitably, we will get drawn into Syria—the Prime Minister has admitted as much and has even said that he would wrap it up by saying that he was doing it on humanitarian grounds—but I have not heard much about Turkey and the Kurds. I have one of the largest Turkish-Kurdish communities in the country in north-east London, and I know that the Kurdish community has a long-held aspiration for a Kurdish state, which I support, but it would involve dismembering Syria, Turkey and Iraq. That explains some of Turkey’s ambivalence about this issue.

Some people have said that this is not 2003. Sadly, this reminds me too much of 2003. Yes, it is legal, but there is the same rhetoric: national interest, surgical strikes and populations begging to be liberated. I think that it was Walpole who said of another war that the population are ringing the bells today, but they will be wringing their hands tomorrow. We know that the public want something to be done, but as this war wears on and as it drains us of millions and billions of pounds, the public will ask, “What are we doing there? How are we going to get out?” I cannot support this military intervention. I do not see the strategy, and I do not see the endgame.

3.57 pm

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
585 cc1342-3 
Session
2014-15
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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