This is the first article I have written for the Gazette since the Prime Minister ordered air strikes against the Syrian regime. (Because of the paper’s deadlines, my article last week was submitted before the action took place.) Having spoken to some of the most senior politicians and military advisers involved in that decision, I have no doubt that it was the right thing to do. We had to let the Syrian military - and all other countries - know that there are consequences to using chemical weapons.
The Syrian civil war has been one of the most dreadful humanitarian disasters of our generation. Hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced, a country’s ancient culture and fabric disrupted and destroyed. I travelled to the Syrian border in early 2016 to visit the refugee camps and hear for myself the stories of those who fled. I will never forget the things they told me. Ordinary, decent, professional people driven from their homes by brutal warring factions. Families who had seen their residential streets bombed by military aircraft. Children who had become separated from their parents and who did not know whether they would find them or whether they were alive. I asked one father who was my age with young children like mine why he had left. He said that there were two armies in his town and both had told him that if he didn’t join them, he and his family would be killed.
The Syrian conflict is an intractable problem with no good outcome. I believe it is highly likely that Assad will, with his Russian support, win the war. Even if it were possible to reverse that trajectory, it is not at all clear that that would be a good idea. His opponents are fundamentalists who have no love for our way of life and who would be no allies of the West or of our values.
For this reason entering the war in order to try and affect its result is a non-starter. But, crucially, the action taken 10 days ago was carefully calculated not to change the balance of power. It was solely focused on sites involved in the production and deployment of chemical weapons.
Those strikes, taken with the US and France and supported by our major allies, has damaged Syria’s ability to use chemical weapons in the future. We cannot be sure that they will have completely prevented it, but they have certainly made it harder. Moreover, our action was undertaken with such precision that there were no civilian casualties.
Many have questioned whether parliament should have been recalled. I never like to see Parliament sidelined. But in this instance I know that the Prime Minister did the right thing. This was a single instance attack in response to a major violation of international protocol. If we had had a debate the PM would have been asked to divulge intelligence that would have undermined the effectiveness of the whole attack. For more major actions, such as the Falklands, Afghanistan or Iraq, I and all my colleagues, would demand that Parliament was consulted.
The misery of the First World War showed there was no place for chemical weapons in a civilised world. We have upheld those values, hard learnt by our ancestors. There must be consequences for those who use chemical weapons, and if necessary we will provide the consequences.