Syria

Sunday

Nick Robinson

The debate about Syrian airstrikes already feels hackneyed

Two years ago, just a few days after the Commons opposed airstrikes on Syria, I read another memorable phrase to David Cameron. It was what President Putin’s spokesman had been saying about Britain in private — ‘a small island no one pays attention to’. I have had the sense ever since that the Prime Minister has been haunted by the remark. I expect MPs will change that next week when they back RAF attacks on IS targets in Syria. However, so much else in this debate already feels wearily familiar. Backers of airstrikes will call opponents of them ‘appeasers’. They will respond by labelling their opponents ‘warmongers’, while armchair generals will head

Sebastian Payne

John McDonnell: Ukip is ‘an evil force within our society’

John McDonnell spoke at a Momentum curry dinner in Oldham yesterday evening, following a day on the doorstep ahead of Thursday’s by-election. I was lurking at the back and there weren’t many other journalists there. The shadow chancellor raised expectations for Labour holding onto the seat, as well as telling Momentum activists that the party has to defeat Ukip, who are seen as the most likely challengers, because it is an ‘evil force within our society’: WATCH 1/3 John McDonnell at Momentum curry dinner: #Ukip is “an evil force within our society” https://t.co/H8qzcmrQ1S — Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) November 29, 2015 ‘There are some within the party, and in the media in particular, who are

Saturday

Ed West

There’s nothing ‘conservative’ about supporting foreign intervention

These are the Arab countries the Foreign Office currently advises it is safe to visit: Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Oman and Jordan. Call this list A. These are the Arab countries the Foreign Office currently advises avoiding travel to, or to some regions at least: Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, the Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Call this list B. Anyone notice a pattern here? Answer at the end. I have to admit to not having a clue whether we should be getting involved in Syria. For the first time yesterday morning I listened to Radio 4 and felt there to be a sort of right-wing bias to it,

Friday

Sebastian Payne

What’s really driving Labour’s row over Syria?

Is Labour working through its policy differences on bombing Syria or is the shadow cabinet genuinely split? The New Politics dictates that public debate and consultations should be encouraged, so the Corbynites don’t see a problem with the current situation. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, tweeted this morning to ask everyone to ‘calm down’ because Labour is going through the process of deciding its position on Syria: On Syria, can everyone calm down.We're all simply working through the issues & coming to final decision.Don't mistake democracy for division — John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) November 27, 2015 Diane Abbott, the shadow international development secretary and another key Corbyn ally, has told

Charles Lister

Yes, there are 70,000 moderate opposition fighters in Syria. Here’s what we know about them

Yesterday David Cameron told Parliament that there are ‘about 70,000 Syrian opposition fighters on the ground who do not belong to extremist groups’ who could help fight Islamic State.  The Prime Minister’s number was the result of an internal assessment made by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), backed up by serving British diplomats overseas whose jobs focus on the Syrian opposition. Such a large number struck many as political exaggeration. The chairman of the Defence Committee, Julian Lewis, said he was ‘extremely surprised’. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn may issue a formal demand for clarification. So do these fighters exist and who are they? Of course, the debate primarily centres around the

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Hilary Benn didn’t see Corbyn’s Commons speech on Syria before he gave it

Jeremy Corbyn didn’t show his Shadow Foreign Secretary a copy of what he was going to say in response to David Cameron’s statement on Syria, Coffee House understands. Sources have told me that Hilary Benn was spotted sitting outside Corbyn’s office this morning before the Prime Minister made his Commons statement. Benn appeared to be waiting for something. When I asked his spokesman whether Benn had been given advance sight of Corbyn’s planned response to the Prime Minister, the spokesman said ‘no’. Sources in Corbyn’s team insist that Benn was briefed beforehand, but the confusion goes some way to explaining why Benn and Corbyn appeared to take rather different views

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Shadow Cabinet members threaten resignations over Syria row in Labour

Tonight Labour’s Shadow Cabinet is in uproar over what many of its members see as a fundamental breach of trust from Jeremy Corbyn in writing to the parliamentary party without telling them. ‘Why would you do that?’ asks one shadow minister in utter bafflement. They thought it odd that Corbyn had read from a printed statement about his position on strikes in the meeting, rather than addressing them directly, but odder still that he just hadn’t thought to tell them that he would be writing this letter. There is a suspicion that this evening’s letter is part of a co-ordinated effort with grassroots organisation Momentum to make MPs’ lives miserable

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Corbyn won’t support intervention in Syria, but what will he ask his frontbenchers to do?

It would be a great surprise if Jeremy Corbyn did personally back British air strikes against Islamic State in Syria. So the most interesting thing about his response to the Prime Minister’s statement was whether the Labour leader gave much of a clue as to what he would require his party to do when a vote comes to the Commons. The Shadow Cabinet will meet shortly to discuss this, and from the looks on the faces of some of his shadow ministers as he spoke, it appears that Corbyn will face some debate about the points he made. Corbyn did not rail against the Prime Minister’s desire for action, but

Steerpike Steerpike

Alex Salmond misses the Syria debate (but finds time to unveil his portrait)

MPs in the Commons are currently debating whether or not to vote in favour of airstrikes in Syria, after the Prime Minister delivered a statement on the issue this morning. As members of the opposition — including Dennis Skinner and Chris Leslie — raise questions over the potential airstrikes, where are the self-titled ‘real opposition‘? Well, for all their talk, the SNP’s foreign affairs spokesperson is nowhere to be seen during this Westminster debate. Instead Alex Salmond has decided it is the opportune time to take a trip up to Edinburgh to attend First Minister’s Questions at Scottish Parliament. While Mr S doesn’t doubt Salmond’s intentions, he couldn’t help but notice

The Spectator

Full text and audio: Corbyn’s seven questions to Cameron on Syria

I would like to thank the Prime Minister for providing an advance copy of his remarks. After the despicable and horrific attacks in Paris a fortnight ago the whole House will, I’m sure, agree that our first priority must be the security of Britain and the safety of the British people. So when we consider the Prime Minister’s case for military action in Syria, the issue of whether what he proposes strengthens – or undermines – our national security must be front and centre stage. There is no doubt that the so-called Islamic State group has imposed a reign of terror on millions in Iraq, Syria and Libya. All that

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron insists the UK must attack IS in Syria, but only with a ‘clear majority’ in the House

David Cameron came to the Commons today to make the case for the UK extending its bombing campaign against Islamic State to Syria. His tone was as emollient as possible, as he responded to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee report which argued that the UK should not do this. He said that the UK could provide unique capabilities and that there are 70,000 non-extremist, Syrian fighters who could act as a ground force to support the bombing campaign. He stressed that as long as the Islamic State ‘Caliphate’ exists, it would act as a rallying cry for Islamist extremists around the world and that it had ‘repeatedly’ tried to attack

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron sets out his case for bombing Islamic State in Syria

In the past few minutes, David Cameron has published his response to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee on the case for British action against Islamic State in Syria. You can read the response here. The Prime Minister argues that the threat to Britain is so great that ‘now is the time to scale up British diplomatic, defence and humanitarian efforts to resolve the Syrian conflict and to defeat ISIL’. ‘The threat Isil poses to Britain and to our citizens today is serious and undeniable’, he says, warning that Britain must act before the terrorists succeed in an attack again this country. Cameron’s challenge from MPs was to set out what

Anonymous

Military action against Isis needs a coherent strategy. . . . here it is

Like most British soldiers of my generation, I fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Few would now justify the reasons for invading Iraq; most of us who fought there at first recognised the amateurish nature of the strategy and its lack of realistic political objectives. But in 2007, under General Petraeus, the coalition adopted a new strategy that was underpinned by coherent policy. This stemmed from the recognition that unless common cause was found with moderate Sunnis, a workable Iraqi polity could never be established. The rapid improvements that flowed from this change were impressive but disgracefully shortlived. The US departure from Iraq in 2010 allowed the Shi’ite Nuri Al Maliki

Andrew J.

The pretend war: bombing Isil won’t solve the problem

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thegreatfakewar/media.mp3″ title=”Andrew J. Bacevich and Con Coughlin discuss the West’s war with Isis” startat=35] Listen [/audioplayer]Not so long ago, David Cameron declared that he was not some ‘naive neocon who thinks you can drop democracy out of an aeroplane at 40,000 feet’. Just a few weeks after making that speech, Cameron authorised UK forces to join in the bombing of Libya — where the outcome reaffirmed this essential lesson. Soon Cameron will ask parliament to share his ‘firm conviction’ that bombing Raqqa, the Syrian headquarters of the Islamic State, has become ‘imperative’. At first glance, the case for doing so appears compelling. The atrocities in Paris certainly warrant a

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Corbyn’s defence

What strange people we Brits are. We spend years moaning that our politicians are cynical opportunists who don’t stand for anything. Then along comes an opposition leader who has principles — and appears to stick by them even when it makes him unpopular — and he is dismissed as a joke. Jeremy Corbyn has been ridiculed in recent days for the feebleness of his foreign policy. It is widely agreed that his positions on terrorism and Isis show how unelectable and useless he is. At the same time, we say he is a grave threat to national security. But what has Corbyn said that is so stupid or dangerous? In

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What Muslims think

Do you have sympathy with young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria? It’s a hard question to answer: perhaps you’d wonder who the ‘fighters’ were. Or whether the ‘young Muslims’ were 14-year-old girls, groomed by fanatics to be jihadi brides. But if you answer ‘yes’, you may be surprised to find yourself described as having ‘sympathy for jihadis’. Such are the perils awaiting British Muslims who respond to opinion poll questions. The Sun this week found itself in a row about a front-page headline: 1 IN 5 BRIT MUSLIMS’ SYMPATHY FOR JIHADIS. The poll, by Survation, had asked a rather different question: what level of ‘sympathy’

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Get ready: these climate change talks might actually do something

The Prince of Wales is right, and I appreciate that this isn’t something people say very often. Now and again, certainly, Prince Charles does turn out to be right about things, such as the need for interfaith dialogue or the horrors of some modern architecture, but the manner in which he tends to be right about them does rather have the feel of happy coincidence. In the future, as Warhol didn’t quite say, we will all be right for 15 minutes. Unless it’s about homeopathy. This week, you see, the Prince told Sky News that the war in Syria may be linked to climate change. Not, please note, that it

Kate Chisholm

You can’t forget what Will Self says – even if you wish you could

It lasted for just a few seconds but was such a graphic illustration of the statistics behind the bombing campaign in Syria — and not a word was spoken. Martha Kearney called it an ‘audio graphic’ on the World at One on Monday and explained how Neal Razzell and James Beard for the World Service had been monitoring the number of US combat missions on Islamic State targets in Syria, hour by hour, 24/7, and comparing them with earlier bombing campaigns. Each electronic beat we heard represents one hour, Razzell told us; each beep represents the launch of one combat mission. For Syria, the electronic beeps between each beat were

Tuesday

Kate Maltby

How can we defend our liberal heritage by abandoning its values?

Yusuf, when I last saw him, was still smiling, a middle-aged man with the greying pony-tail of a rock roadie. He described himself as a feminist: he met his wife through work, where, he told me proudly, she was a better computer engineer than he. Yusuf had the stoop of a tall man who’d spent most of his life under ceilings too low for him, and the corrugated iron hut his family now called home was no exception. So we sat cross-legged on the floor, while I asked him about religious tensions in a southern Turkish refugee camp. ‘If you want to know, I’m an atheist. I mean, in Damascus,