Former Chancellor George Osborne made his first speech as a backbencher and gave the debate increased authority. He argued that "the tragedy in Aleppo did not come out of a vacuum; it was created by a vacuum—a vacuum of western leadership, including American and British leadership" - the failure to punish Assad for using chemical weapons in 2013.
He warned that "we have come to a point where it is impossible to intervene anywhere—we lack the political will, as the west, to intervene." He detailed the price of inaction as thousands killed, millions of refugees, neighbouring countries destabilised, rising fascism in eastern Europe and extremism in western Europe, and Russia a decisive player in the region for the first time since the 1970s.
Labour's Anna Turley argued that "we cannot be frozen by the guilt surrounding well-intentioned military action of the past" and should learn the right lessons from Iraq which are "when the potential for military action arises we should not commit until it is clear that it can be achieved. We should properly prepare for what comes afterwards and work better with regional partners."
Turley added "we must pledge never again to turn our backs, never again to be ground down or put off by the length or difficulty of the struggle, never to give in to moral equivalence between brutal fascist dictatorships and a people’s struggle for self-determination and freedom. We must pledge never to be so determinedly full of self-indulgent self-loathing for the west that we do not believe that we can play a positive role for the good of the world. Never again should we lack a sense of responsibility to humanity, wherever it is and however hard the struggle."
These passionate points defy a insularist and isolationist mood in British public opinion. Some leading anti-war figures fear the end of a block on Western intervention. One of their key intellectuals is Guardian columnist Owen Jones, who believes that "the horror of Aleppo presents the counter-argument: the cost of inaction" and seeks to stem what he sees as a revision of history.
Jones essentially accuses liberal interventionists of overegging the pudding by reminding us of the limited nature of suggested military action in August 2013. He also rightly argues that the agencies of the massacres in Aleppo are Assad and Putin.
But the failure to enforce the red line on chemical weapons in 2013 arguably facilitated the entry of Russia into the conflict, undermined secular opponents of Assad and thereby encouraged some anti-Assad fighters to wear black and grow beards. We simply cannot know but Owen himself overeggs his menu by arguing that "there is no precedent of western military intervention in the Arab world ending in anything other than disaster."
This year marks what Jones forgets - the 25th anniversary of the no-fly zone over and safe haven in the Kurdistan Region, which probably prevented the return of Saddam's genocidal regime until it was overthrown in 2003. Kurds hail the no-fly zone, and indeed, the invasion of 2003 as liberations, as I have heard repeatedly on 23 visits there in ten years.
The war in Syria is far from over and will require robust actions to minimise suffering and find a political solution. The next major issue is the Middle East after Daesh. On a recent parliamentary delegation to the Kurdistan Region, Kurdistani political leaders told British MPs that Al Qaeda and its successor Daesh are Iraqi problems and urged continued western engagement in destroying Daesh and then helping rehabilitate Iraq, possibly including the amicable divorce of the Kurdistan Region from Iraq.
One parliamentary debate will not by itself change widespread aversion to liberal interventionism - a gamut of military and non-military options. But continued passivity is becoming discredited. We still have no idea what approach the new American administration of Donald Trump will take. The UK may be on its way out of the European Union but that does not mean that it lacks the power, alone or in concert with other European powers, to do the right thing. It is high time we began listening to the Kurds and others as partners in liberal interventions against fascism.
Gary Kent is the director of All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). He writes this column for Rudaw in a personal capacity. The address for the all-party group is appgkurdistan@gmail.com.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
