Ed is right on Syria

Mark Seddon paints an alarming picture of Labour splits and passivity.  It is, however, a picture that bears no relation to reality.  Ed Miliband’s statement on Syria yesterday, far from giving Messrs Cameron and Hague a blank check, was nuanced and sensible.   Nor does it deviate from the position previously advanced by Douglas Alexander, except insofar as it responds to changes in what is a swiftly-developing situation.

To recall, Ed stated that:

“[T]he Labour Party would consider supporting international action but only on the basis that it was legal, that it was specifically limited to deterring the future use of chemical weapons and that any action contemplated had clear and achievable military goals.”

The reference to the legality of any action appears to have already encouraged Cameron and Hague into announcing that they will seek a Security Council resolution authorising military intervention.  Absent such authorization, any such action would, according to most informed observers, be illegal.

Also made clear is that any action taken must be limited in scope.  Here, we may already be seeing divergences between Labour and the Coalition, with reports that the draft resolution to be put to the Security Council will not simply respond to Assad’s use of chemical weapons but speak, more generally, of protecting the civilian population, a rather elastic objective, as the UN-authorized intervention for that purpose in Libya proved.

However, it is trite to talk about double standards, whilst suggestions that it was not Assad’s forces that used chemical weapons appear to lack credibility.  The taboo against chemical weapons has been maintained for over 70 years and is worth enforcing.  Failure to respond to the only other previous exception – Saddam Hussein’s use of mustard gas on Halabja in 1988 – remains a matter of shame.  Assad has been warned very clearly not to use chemical weapons and Western credibility on the issue is now at stake.

To see the situation exclusively through the prism of the 2003 invasion of Iraq is to distort it. Indeed, if historical parallels are to be sought, a better parallel is the earlier limited bombing campaigns in 1993 and in 1998, each in response to particular acts of provocation (the attempted assassination of ex-President George Bush in the first case; the obstruction of UN weapons inspectors in the second).  Criticisms may be made of both operations, but on neither occasion did using force result in ‘mission creep’ and the US and the UK being sucked into an Iraqi quagmire.  That was the result of a very-conscious decision by George W. Bush’s administration.

Tony Blair, who seems to loom very large in Mark Seddon’s field of vision, is no longer Prime Minister or Labour Party leader, and there is no evidence that Ed hasn’t learned the lessons of Iraq.  There are serious and important questions to be answered concerning Western policy towards Syria.  Mark Seddon has highlighted a number of them, albeit in apocalyptic terms.   And the role of the United Nations is important.  But let’s not use the issue to re-fight the controversies over Iraq or to attack Ed’s leadership.

Matthew Happold is a member of Labour International and the Lëtzebuerger Sozialistesch Arbechterpartei