Iraq and Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict

Ben Wallace Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman’s second point is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, but I will of course draw it to her attention. We have a clear precedent established about coming to the House, when circumstances permit, in relation to the use of military force. We did that over Syria, even though we were then defeated. The hon. Gentleman is trying to extend that precedent to support for other states taking military action. This House does not govern actions taken by other states. The Government will of course always come to explain our diplomatic posture on all those things.

[Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)]

In the post-Iraq and post-Afghanistan conferences, and in the Syria peace conferences, Iran was consistently left off the guest list. Does my right hon. Friend not agree that what we are seeing in Iraq is the inevitable outcome of our picking and choosing our regional players and leaving Iran off the guest lists? In future we should learn the lesson and invite all sides to try to resolve these issues, especially those that live closest and suffer the greatest threat through such conflict.

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend must bear in mind that there is also a lesson for those not invited. In the case of the unsuccessful Geneva peace conference that we held earlier this year on Syria, we and others were entirely open to the inclusion of Iran. We only wanted to know that Iran would support the creation of a transitional Government in Syria as a solution to the problem, in the same way that Russia has done through its support for the Geneva 2012 declaration. That was quite a small requirement for adding it to the guest list, but Iran was unable to do that. The effort has to come from Iran as well as from the rest of us.