Should the West intervene in Syria? This week’s Spectator debate on this topic saw an impressive swing of opinion in the audience once the speakers had made their cases for and against intervention. All agreed that the first part of the motion debated – ‘Assad is a war criminal: the West must intervene in Syria’ – wasn’t in doubt, but while Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Dr Wael Aleji and Dr Alan Mendoza argued that the West had a clear case for intervening in various ways, Sir Andrew Green, Dr Halla Diyab and Douglas Murray argued that intervention would not improve the crisis at all.
Alan Mendoza, founder of the Henry Jackson Society, argued that the case against intervention ignored what had happened in Syria since the conflict began. ‘The sad fact is that every ill that was ascribed to our possible intervention in Syria has arisen, but because of our non-intervention,’ he said, adding:
‘There is a full-scale sectarian conflict in play, not because of intervention but because al-Assad has used terror to turn Alawites against their neighbours… We are discovering that not arming one side just means that you end up with an unlevel killing field. One side armed with tanks, planes, artillery and chemical weapons is able to pulverise the other which can only rely on small arms. And worse, Islamists are increasingly visible in the Syrian opposition. Our non-intervention has allowed them to steal the thunder from more moderate forces, on the simple basis that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.’
But when he spoke as part of the team opposing the motion, Mendoza’s Henry Jackson colleague and Spectator associate editor Douglas Murray told the audience that this delay formed one of the reasons for not intervening at all. ‘If there ever was a time to intervene in Syria, it has passed,’ he said. ‘Somewhere near the beginning of the revolution there were people that could have been backed, could have been encouraged to power. We may have seen something like we have seen the best case scenario in Egypt, the best case scenario in Tunisia and that would have been potentially possible.
‘The time to intervene seems to me to have passed, the window has closed, apart from anything else because the moderate opposition has been taken over by immoderate elements you would not wish to be part of.’
Murray also believed that there was insufficient will in this country for intervention. He said:
‘I wish it weren’t the case that we spend three times in this country, three times the defence budget on welfare every year, I wish it weren’t the case. I wish we were a serious military power, but if we’re not willing to be, then let’s not pretend that we are one.’
But Dr Wael Aleji, a member of the General Commission of the Syria Revolution and a speaker for the motion, argued that ‘if we delay support, more people will die and with the continuous Russian and Iranian support, the Assad regime will become more hostile towards the West and the neighbouring countries’. He argued that the majority of Syrians ‘are in favour of a civil and democratic regime, rather than a religious one’.
Aleji wanted the West to ‘send a powerful message to Assad: a message that this will no longer be a one-sided war’. But Sir Andrew Green, former UK ambassador to Syria, said this would be ‘fuelling a ghastly civil war that would last for years and would settle nothing’. Like his colleagues against the motion, he regretted the West’s tactics so far, but for a different reason: the focus on Assad is wrong. He told the debate:
‘I would argue that our policy has been misconceived from the start and for two reasons. One is that the focus on Bashar al-Assad himself was a mistake. He is a figurehead, he is not a Saddam, nor even his father. If he went he would be replaced overnight by some ruthless Alawite general who would be no improvement.’
Whichever side wins the conflict, he warned, ‘there will be a bloodbath’. Instead the West should focus on ‘four immediate goals: a ceasefire, a separation of forces, a supply of humanitarian aid within Syria, the return of refugees to their homes’.
Similarly, Syrian film maker Halla Diyab argued that the focus should be on equipping refugees for life after Assad. She agreed that an intervention based on assisting the rebels would ‘only serve to escalate the conflict…and by extension, fuel a regional conflict that shows little sign of ending’.
‘If the West were to throw its hat into the ring, then whatever hopes the US, Britain and other member states may have to play a constructive role in the future of Syria have been ruined. The West will be regarded as entering a proxy war against Russia and Iran and inside Syria itself. Ethnic and religious groups such as the Alawites, Shia and maybe Christians will see the West as supporting a war against them and their interests.’
But Sir Malcolm Rifkind argued that refusing to intervene simply because there were risks was wrong. He said:
‘Of course there are risks, there are always risks but you have to ask: what is the alternative?’
Like his colleagues in favour of the motion, Rifkind argued that a solution to the crisis would need a stalemate to be brought about by Western intervention. He said:
‘Assad at the moment has absolutely no reason to believe he isn’t going to win. He’s already heavily armed. He has Russia and Iran already providing arms. He’s got 4,000 Iranian troops coming to help.’
When the audience arrived, they were asked whether they were in favour or opposed to the motion. 62 said they were for, 148 said against, and 133 said they didn’t know. At the end of the debate, opinion had swung towards the ‘for’ camp, with 188 saying they agreed with the motion. But those opposing it won, with 207 votes, and 3 ‘don’t knows’.
The next Spectator Debate – featuring David Goodhart, Mehdi Hasan, Ken Livingstone and Peter Hitchens – will be held on 9 July discussing ‘Too much immigration, too little integration?‘. Click here for more information.
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