Syria

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome this debate enormously. This war has gone on for 54 months; that is four and a half years. The Second World War lasted only five and three-quarter years. That puts it in context. In my judgment there are two causes. First, this is the fourth Shia/Sunni war since Syria was set up. Secondly, I am afraid that the West’s idea of an Arab spring has proved to be a disaster. In fact, as my noble friend on the Front Bench will know, we were the first to recognise the freedom fighters. The trouble was we did not recognise who were the freedom fighters, and the jihadists were the largest group.

I raised this issue with the then Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister in 2013, and was told that Assad was on the way out. However, as my noble friend on the Cross Benches said, he has spent an awful long time going. In my judgment the time has surely come to recognise reality and meet Assad, exactly as Churchill had to do with Stalin. You may not like the man but that is irrelevant in the context of what we face today. If we do not, it is my judgment that the state of ISIL will become a reality. I draw an analogy with Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers, a vicious, left-wing-led Hindu organisation that was only defeated by strong leadership—remember that it is democratically elected—good armed forces, and absolutely key was the help the West gave to stop supplies to the Tamil Tigers. We now need similar leadership from the West, and it has to include Assad and his forces. If we do not address this task, the West will surely suffer. ISIL state will become a reality and we, too, in the UK will suffer home-grown terrorism which may make the IRA look like beginners. We need only look at the pictures on page 30 and 31 of today’s Times to understand what the real threats are. I say to my noble friend on the Front Bench that I have seen some of those cages at the end of the war in Sri Lanka. They are quite ghastly. If we have to sup with Assad, then we must do it soon.