Syria - 31/08/13

Maybe I was wrong. It seems that David Cameron failed in achieving his ambition of war after losing a vote in the Commons on the matter by just 13 votes. Now though morals are torn; nobody knows whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

There are plenty of people who have argued against intervention into Syria and their reasoning has mostly been justified and understandable. They don’t want another war.

As Ed Miliband has made quite clear, the “shadow” of Iraq is still looming large in the consciousness of the UK and that is a fair point. The invasion of Iraq a decade ago was at best a botched job and at worst an unmitigated legal, political and humanitarian disaster and it is now clear that lessons have been learnt in the intervening ten years.

Technically, the Prime Minister has the power, under Royal Prerogative, to deploy UK forces wherever and whenever he sees necessary, but to do so would be nothing short of political suicide. Military action without a Parliamentary mandate has not been taken since the sinking of the Belgrano at the start of the Falklands War in 1982 and the controversy of that incident has still not passed so one can only imagine the fury that would inevitably follow if Cameron went ahead with a Syrian deployment irrespective of Parliament’s objections.

Cameron has suffered great political damage, in terms of credibility, following his defeat on this issue. After he had fought with such strong words, backed by some initial action at the UN, he must surely have thought that he had accurately gauged the mood of the public and of his party, clearly, he had not. It is always damaging for a Prime Minister to lose an important vote in the Commons but, as the BBC’s Nick Robinson has said, it is without modern precedent that a PM has lost control of his foreign policy.

However, considering that it seems Cameron had misread the national mood, it has to be asked if he will actually suffer or benefit from this turn of events. After all, if Cameron believed that the public had wanted to intervene then if he had won in the Commons and had intervened then that would have been a political success. But now that it seems the public mood is against intervention it could be seen as a political success that Cameron showed restraint and has not intervened.

Meanwhile, the US’ own position seems a little less sure after the UK committed to not intervene. John Kerry gave a speech on Friday in which he states that US intelligence reports show that the chemical weapons attack was definitely carried out by the Assad regime and that it killed 1429 people. These numbers are 1100 more than the initial figure presented by the Syrian Rebels and are strongly challenged by the Syrian and Russian Governments.

Now that his claims are being questioned and his allies are rapidly leaving his side Obama seems to be losing his own determination for action in Syria. The US President says that there is “No decision yet” this is completely in contrast to the words of him and his team earlier in the week when US forces were said to be “Ready to go”.

And as the great game of Politics is being played across the World the very reason for it all appears to have gotten lost. People are dying in Syria. Civilians are being killed, mostly in the crossfire but probably by both sides. Regardless of who is killing who and with what one thing is clear; Bashar al-Assad is overseeing a bloody civil war in which tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions have been displaced.

All this could end if the present regime stepped aside, but I say, if that is not going to happen then regime change is justified. That will be the only way to prevent further civilian casualties and that is what must be achieved. The death of those who support neither side and just wish to live their lives safe from harm must be protected and if we are the ones who must protect them then I say that we must.

I would urge the UK Parliament to reconsider. I for one feel deeply uncomfortable knowing that my Government is currently doing nothing to prevent the death of innocent people. I know that not everyone shares my view that we are the ones who should do something. But if not us, then who?

I’ll leave you with these final thoughts. If we were caught in civil war and it was our children who were homeless, our young brothers who had to fight highly trained and well-equipped armies, our mothers and grandmothers who had been killed with chemical weapons wouldn't we want help? Wouldn't want to be protected? Wouldn't we want to be saved?

Think on that, please.