The Significant Defeat
By Farooque Chowdhury
01 September, 2013
Countercurrents.org
A setback precedes the Syria intervention plan as the British parliament brought a defeat on a treasury motion – MPs voted against immediate military intervention in Syria. It’s historic. And it carries a lot of messages for many.
To many, the unprecedented vote is a blow to the Syria War design. The British parliament stunned all the UK-allies and all the UK-subordinates. Usually prime ministers don’t get defeated on war motions. This turns the defeat unbelievable.
Still a broad international back up to Syria War is lacking. The Arab League does not overtly stand for military action without UN consent. The British parliament’s position on the immediate direct intervention issue has made the situation a bit uneasy.
“The impact of such a strike”, said Carl Levin, US Senate Armed Services chairman, “would be weakened if it does not have the participation and support of a large number of nations including Arab nations”.
Russia and China are away from the Syria campaign. The intervention plan, as like the Libya plan, doesn’t care about these two countries. The prevailing practice led George Galloway throw a question in the British parliament: “When did Russia and China cease to be members of the international community?” He cited the total population of the two countries.
Galloway’s question roams in the corridors of geopolitical power equation. But it does not matter now whatever goes there in those corridors.
In this backdrop, the British parliamentary defeat made Obama appear a lone warrior. Friends, obviously, will join him very soon. He has got the French support. There is Turkey.
However, Turkish prime minister Erdogan needs more. He will not be satisfied, as he has told, with “limited” military action against Syria. He pleads for an intervention similar to the one in Kosovo in 1999.
But, the Turkish desire is not the determining factor. It’s not even significant in this case.
Rather the UK position is significant. Old friend, the UK, is not in the Syria expedition force, at least for now, and at least directly.
However, Cameron said: There are other ways of “upholding the international taboo on the use of chemical weapons”. He assured: Britain is still “deeply engaged in the world” and argued the rejection of military action “doesn’t stop us working with allies”.
Cameron’s the humiliating defeat in the Commons has suspended the UK’s run to Syria, at least temporarily. The UK prime minister now appears to accept no direct and immediate British intervention in Syria.
The British press-reaction to the defeat tells a part of the story. Most of them took it as Cameron’s humiliation: “Cameron humiliated as MPs veto missile strikes on Syria” (The Times), “US ready to act alone as MPs reject Syria strike: Embarrassing vote defeat for Cameron” (The Financial Times), “CAM DOWN: PM humiliated as MPs say NO to military strikes” (The Sun), “The humbling of Cameron” (The Daily Mail), “PM suffers dramatic commons defeat as Labour hardens opposition to air strikes” (The Independent), “No to war, blow to Cameron” (The Daily Telegraph), “We don't want your war” (The Daily Mirror) and “MPs force Cameron to rule out British assault on Syria” (The Guardian).
The defeat in the Commons is part of the British politics. The developments will have repercussion in home and across the oceans.
The defeat came after Labour joined 39 Tory and Liberal Democrat rebels. Philip Cowley, an academic specializing in Commons revolts assumed: The rebellion must be bigger than the one that brought down Chamberlain in 1940.
After the vote, there was shouting at Tory rebels outside Commons chamber: “You’re a disgrace”. Absence of about 30 Labour MPs is also an issue to ponder.
Lack of an all party consensus on the issue is significant. A prime minister losing a vote on a major foreign policy issue is unprecedented in modern times. Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Lib Dem leader, told no one can remember when a government last lost a vote on a non-Europe foreign policy motion.
In the Commons, Galloway told a few hard truths: If Assad was that bad, why did Britain invite him to stay at Buckingham Palace? Why did one prime minister propose him for a knighthood? And why was he praised as a modernizer? The rebels include people who eat human flesh, and saw the heads off their opponents. The rebels in Syria have been caught with Sarin gas.
Then, the vote came, and Philip Hammond, the defense secretary, felt “disappointed” by the result. The result shows there is a “deep sense of unease” about involvement in the Middle East.
At the same time, many of the Lords are opposed to the Syria intervention. Of them, voice of Lord Boyce, the former head of the armed forces, is significant: The public do not want military intervention and, in representing their views, MPs are doing their job.
Similar is the articulation of Lord Dannatt, the former head of the army and once an adviser to Cameron: Servicemen and women should not be forced to fight a campaign without public support. The drums of war were banging very loudly two or three days ago. The people didn't like it. They [the soldiers, sailors and airmen] are citizens like you and me. And they are citizens who absolutely have to know that what they are being asked to do is what the country wants them to do, what the country believes is right. And as far as intervention in Syria is concerned I do not support intervention in any shape or form at this time.
Only 11% of the public, the Daily Telegraph informed, support the UK’s involvement in Syria War. A recent YouGov figure tells only 25% of the public are in favor of the UK taking part in missile attacks against Syria while 50% opposed. Tory MP Andrew Percy wrote: I sent Syria motion to residents for comment. Some support but still general opposition. I will therefore vote against. — Andrew Percy (@andrewpercy) August 29, 2013.
No doubt, Iraq blunder haunts the UK public and a section of politicians. Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative former international development secretary, says he voted for the Iraq war but subsequently regretted it. Miliband said that he was determined to learn lessons from Iraq. Cameron told Sky News the parliament “reflected the great skepticism of the British people”.
The skepticism is about getting involved in another Middle East war. The “well of public opinion has been … poisoned by the Iraq episode”. The Iraq invasion’s ominous shadow is there.
Significance of this domestic reality can’t be ignored. There are questions related to economy and public psychology, and questions related to the country’s external role as it has interests in areas around the world. It’s not only the traces of an imperial past. It’s in the present phase also. There are questions concerning oil, investments, arms trade, strategic minerals, trade route, labor, etc., and influence and power required to make these safe.
Hence, the parliamentary-defeat can’t simply pass by. Questions arise: Shall the UK turn isolationist? Is it possible for the economy now? What impact shall isolationism make in the economy and among its junior partners and competitors? Then, why a parliament takes such a stand? So, the parliamentary defeat’s global implications are far and wider.
Jack Straw, foreign secretary during the Iraq war, is hopeful: “It is not that Britain has become isolationist.”
But, Lord Ashdown, the former Lib Dem leader, had “never been so depressed and ashamed of his country” for failing to step into the Syrian scene. The Lord felt the failure to intervene will put the UK “in danger of plunging into isolationism”.
So, Chancellor George Osborne felt Britain would have to do “a national soul-searching” about its “role in the world and whether Britain wants to play a big part in upholding the international system, be that a big open and trading nation that I’d like us to be or whether we turn our back on that”. He hoped this was not “the moment where we turn our back on the world’s problems”.
Osborne acknowledged the defeat could place a strain on the “special relationship” between Britain and the US. Philip Hammond, the UK defense secretary, feels the defeat could damage Anglo-American relations: “place some strain on the special relationship.”
The UK, a traditional US ally, is the most loyal US ally in almost all US military actions. So, the defeat immediately impacted the Syria War alliance. Can the Atlantic Charter be forgotten? Only days ago, who imagined the UK position on Syria? It was none.
In a remarkable frank phone call, Cameron accused Miliband of siding with Russia and letting down the US over Syria issue. But Miliband, the Labour leader, was not opposed to military action in Syria in principle. Miliband said his party had not ruled out backing a strike.
Do the accusation and the assertion make one worry with the failure of the war motion? The reality with seeds of drama on the world stage carries dangers and opportunities. Countries entangled in the world web can look for or miss opportunities and bargains. But that depends on their ability to read incidents and developments, breaches and defeats.
Farooque Chowdhury is Dhaka-based freelancer.
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