MPs give backing to air strikes in Iraq – but wonder where intervention will lead

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/26/isis-air-strikes-parliament-vote-yes-and-no

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Yes

Hazel Blears, MP for Salford and Eccles and former Labour communities secretary, who lives near the family of Isis hostage Alan Henning

Alan went out to Syria on a humanitarian mission to give aid to the men, women, children and babies who were being slaughtered. He was there as an ambassador from our country and today I make a personal plea to the people of Isis – whether it falls on stony ground or not – to release him. He should come home to be with his wife and family and the people who love him.

I think that most of us who have been involved in these issues for some years have sometimes seen the unintended consequences of action we have taken. That is why a far-sighted strategy about what we do, what the impact will be and how we build resilience and coalitions will be essential.

I thank the prime minister for the work he has done in building the alliances and the coalition, because it means we are in a significantly different place today than we have been in years past. I think that the idea of the west on its own – America and Britain – taking a war to the middle east is completely wrong, and that the idea that the states on the ground, which have a personal responsibility for the safety of their own region, should take this action, with our support and backing, is absolutely right. I know how difficult it is to build those alliances, so I am thankful for that.

Kenneth Clarke, former Conservative chancellor

The world would be a better place if Isis was destroyed, and Britain would be a safer country without doubt. The legal case for intervention in Iraq is clear with its government inviting us, and I think it is pretty clear in Syria because of the genocide and the humanitarian disasters being inflicted on that country. I do agree that it is artificial to divide the two problems: the Sykes-Picot line is a theoretical line on the map now, and there is absolutely no doubt that Isis has to be defeated in both countries.

Our participation in these military attacks is almost symbolic. Six aircraft and our intelligence are no doubt valuable to our allies, but we are symbolically joining them. My main hope is that it gives us a positive influence on the diplomacy and the unfolding politics that have to take place to try to get together – again, all sides seem to agree that this is necessary – the widest possible participation and settlement between the great powers of the region, to get what we all want: lasting stability and security in what at the moment is a very dangerous region of the world.

Ann Clwyd, Labour MP for Cynon Valley who served as Tony Blair’s human rights envoy to Iraq

I fully support the resolution, but I do not think it goes far enough. I have listened with interest to what the Americans have been saying in the past few days. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, and other senior US military figures have said that air power alone cannot defeat Isis.

Air strikes have obviously not been able to recapture Mosul. Four months on, Mosul is still in the hands of Isis. Some two million people live in Mosul, although many have fled. Another problem, of course, is the number of refugees who have gone across borders – into Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey.

Of course there is a problem; nobody would dispute that. The Iraqi army, apparently, are not ready or properly trained for such action. We cannot depend on the Peshmerga – a small group of soldiers who have been defending their own homeland and cannot possibly be responsible for defending the whole of Iraq. That is just pie in the sky. The question of what we will do if the air strikes are not successful will continue to challenge us … [but] I fully support the resolution, which is a good step in the right direction.

Qualified yes

Peter Hain, former Labour Northern Ireland secretary

In the cabinet in 2003, I backed Tony Blair over Iraq because I honestly believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. I was wrong. He did not. We went to a war on a lie, and the aftermath was disastrous. That has made me deeply allergic to anything similar in the region and certainly anything remotely hinting at cowboy western intervention.

The elephant in the room, for me, remains Syria. Isis will never be defeated if it is constantly allowed to regroup from its Syrian bases. Without either UN or Syrian government authorisation, air strikes in Syria may be illegal, although there could well be justification under international law for such strikes, even without UN agreement … handled sensitively this could be an opportunity – and I urge the prime minister to take it – to kick-start a proper Syrian peace process and to defuse the long-standing, deep and inflammatory divisions among Muslims in the Middle East.

Frank Dobson, former Labour health secretary

If we look at the track record of the interventions of the French, British and Americans in the Middle East since the collapse of the Ottoman empire, we see that the odds look as though we will not succeed, because everything else has gone wrong. And yet I find that I am probably going to vote for the motion tonight.

The situation that we face is different from previous ones. Clearly, what has happened is a threat to international peace and security, and therefore entitles the world powers and the government of Iraq to invite support to try to protect them against their invaders. It may not be an invading army, but it is certainly an invasion that Iraq has suffered, and Iraq is entitled to call upon the rest of us. And it is faced with a genocidal outfit. Genocide consists of killing people because of who they are, and that is exactly what Isis is doing.

No

George Galloway, Respect MP for Bradford West

Isis itself is an imaginary army. A former defence secretary said we must bomb their bases. They don’t have any bases. The territory they control is the size of Britain and yet there are only between 10,000 and 20,000 of them. Do the maths. They don’t concentrate as an army. They don’t live in bases. The only way a force of that size could successfully hold the territory that they hold is if they have a population which is acting as the water in which they are swimming. And that population is quiescent because of western policies and western invasion and occupation. That’s the truth of the matter. Isis could not survive for five minutes if the tribes in the west of Iraq rose up against them.

Isis is a death cult, it is a gang of terrorist murderers. It is not an army and it is certainly not an army that is going to be destroyed by aerial bombardment. Isis is able to rule the parts of Iraq that it does because nobody in those parts has any confidence in the government in Baghdad, a sectarian government.

Diane Abbott, former Labour shadow public health minister

Some people have said that this is not 2003. Sadly, this reminds me too much of 2003. Yes, it is legal, but there is the same rhetoric: national interest, surgical strikes and populations begging to be liberated. I think that it was Walpole who said of another war that the population are ringing the bells today, but they will be wringing their hands tomorrow. We know that the public want something to be done, but as this war wears on and as it drains us of millions and billions of pounds, the public will ask: ‘What are we doing there? How are we going to get out?’ I cannot support this military intervention. I do not see the strategy, and I do not see the endgame.

Adam Holloway, Conservative MP for Gravesham

I believe that when [MPs] think of Isis they think of a foreign fighter, dressed in black, holding before him a terrified offering dressed in orange – a kind of spectre or ghost, screaming at us out of cyberspace. Last week I was in Iraq and an Iraqi said to me: ‘You’ve got to see Isis in Iraq like this: it’s the good, the bad and the ugly.’ The good are the Sunni tribesmen, rising up against the sectarian Government in Baghdad, the bad are the foreign jihadis, and the ugly are people from the former Ba’athist regime whom my regiment fought in the first gulf war. Who will kick out the bad, the jihadis? The only people on the ground who will be able to do that are the good and the ugly – the tribes and the Ba’athists.

Time and time again, we see that the only way to remove people like Isis is without the consent of the local people. It is overwhelmingly a political problem, even if it is a security headache. It is not a first-order clash between the west and the Muslim world but one between neighbours.

Those against

Labour rebels Diane Abbott (Hackney North & Stoke Newington), Graham Allen (Nottingham North), Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South), Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley), Martin Caton (Gower), Katy Clark (Ayrshire North & Arran), Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West), Paul Flynn (Newport West), Stephen Hepburn (Jarrow), Kate Hoey (Vauxhall), Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North), Sian James (Swansea East), Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North & Leith), John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington), Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde), Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby), Grahame Morris (Easington), George Mudie (Leeds East), Linda Riordan (Halifax), Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield), Dennis Skinner (Bolsover), Graham Stringer (Blackley & Broughton) and Mike Wood (Batley & Spen).

Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) voted in both divisions, marking a “registered abstention”

Conservative rebels Richard Bacon (Norfolk South), John Baron (Basildon & Billericay), Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne & Sheppey), Adam Holloway (Gravesham), Nigel Mills (Amber Valley), Mark Reckless (Rochester & Strood)

Liberal Democrat rebel Julian Huppert (Cambridge)

SNP Stewart Hosie (Dundee East), Angus MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar), Angus Robertson (Moray), Mike Weir (Angus) and Eilidh Whiteford (Banff & Buchan)

SDLP Mark Durkan (Foyle), Dr Alasdair McDonnell (Belfast South) and Margaret Ritchie (Down South)

Plaid Cymru Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East & Dinefwr) and Hywel Williams (Arfon)

Respect George Galloway (Bradford West)

Green Caroline Lucas (Brighton Pavilion)

Tellers:

Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) from Labour and the SNP’s Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire)