Liberation of Mosul

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

The next step in Iraq is to push Daesh beyond the border, which will mean some mopping-up operations in the north of Syria and to the north and west of Mosul, and clearing Daesh out of some remaining smaller towns along the Euphrates river valley. Members of the coalition, in our regular meetings—we will be meeting in Paris next week—are already looking at what more can be done to counter Daesh globally and whether we can set up structures now that will enable us to respond much more quickly and come to each other’s aid should Daesh resurrect itself in different parts of Africa, or indeed in the far east.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Given the Abadi regime’s inability to deliver reform, would not we be wise to plan on the basis that Iraq is unlikely to survive as a unitary state and is more likely to break into its constituent confessional and ethnic parts?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

With respect to my right hon. Friend, I do not think that it is for us in this House to question now the integrity of Iraq or start designing a different shape for either it or Syria. We tried that around 100 years ago—indeed, it was a Conservative Back Bencher, Sykes, who first drew the line that runs between Syria and Iraq and presented it to Prime Minister Asquith. My right hon. Friend knows from his own ministerial experience how frustrating the pace of reform has been in Iraq—for example, to get the security and policing right, to delegate sufficient powers to the governors and to ensure that the army is properly accountable. Slowly, those reforms are being put in place. I think that we must continue to do what we are doing, which is accepting that these things are slow, but there is a democratic Government in Iraq who genuinely at the moment represent Shi’a, Sunni and Kurds in Iraq, and we have to work with them.