In 2013, MPs voted narrowly to reject a motion that would have allowed David Cameron to authorise military action in Syria. A year earlier, President Obama warned that the deployment of chemical weapons would be a “red line”. They were used; he did nothing. Half a million people have died; terrible crimes have been committed. The war continues, but the dictator Bashar al-Assad, supported by Russia, has largely prevailed.
In 2014, a few months after the US, UK and their allies washed their hands of that country, Vladimir Putin launched his first invasion of Ukraine (via proxies) and annexed Crimea. One direct line can be traced back to these events, and forward to present bloodshed: the invasion of Iraq. That war, 20 years ago next month, is a standard text on diplomatic and military failure.
A quick reprise: after the terrorist attacks of September 2001 Tony Blair became the galvaniser-in-chief for the White House. He was spectacularly successful in assembling a coalition of the willing for the invasion of Afghanistan (those were the days when British prime ministers had clout). Within months, however, George W Bush, had turned his attentions elsewhere, announcing in his State of the Union address that he would go after the “axis of evil”, at the heart of which was Saddam Hussein.
Blair resolved he would never be blindsided by the Americans again. As I wrote in Blair’s Wars, he told Bush as early as April 2002 at the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, that he would go along with him, come what may. The rest, as they say, is dodgy dossiers, spurious legal advice, elusive weapons of mass destruction and a disastrous occupation. All the various public inquiries that followed have corroborated this chain of events.
One of the most important changes enacted after Iraq was the requirement, pushed through by Gordon Brown, that prime ministers seek parliamentary approval for future interventions. In March 2011 MPs backed action in Libya, only two years later to refuse it on Syria. The shock was immense. Bullish bombastic Britain doesn’t do such things; it fights the good fight. That, at least, has always been its self-image.
Asked by the BBC to present a special radio programme on the vote, I was surprised when Blair agreed to be interviewed (he had blanked me for a decade). He was incredibly eager to be heard, to be understood. I quoted Cameron back to him, saying that people had “felt let down” by Iraq. As is his wont, Blair disagreed, asking in return what might happen to a world “without a referee”?
Iraq has left scars that refuse to heal. Libya was a smaller intervention, equally counter-productive. Afghanistan was the longest of them all, until it collapsed with the humiliating flight from Kabul in August 2021. Having given them false hope and fleeting security, the US decided that international forces should quit suddenly, leaving Afghans at the mercy of the Taliban.
These interventions and others, such as in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, were wrapped up in the doctrine of liberal, or humanitarian, intervention. It arose from the horror of a global community looking the other way as people were being slaughtered in Bosnia and Rwanda. It morphed into a messianic zeal to remove dictators and install democracy, at the barrel of the gun.
That is no more. On his appointment as secretary of state in March 2021, Antony Blinken declared: “We will not promote democracy through costly military interventions or by attempting to overthrow authoritarian regimes by force. We have tried these tactics in the past. However well intentioned, they haven’t worked.”
When the United Nations general assembly voted last March to condemn Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, some 35 countries chose to abstain, including pivotal states such as India, Pakistan and South Africa. The ability of the US and its partners to bring the global south along with it is vastly diminished. Some are less than impressed by the “do the right thing” tap on the shoulder form of diplomacy; some have long been non-aligned. Some see business opportunities with China and Russia. Many continue to cite Iraq as the basis of their suspicion of western intentions.
As for Britain, it has taken a while – decades in fact – but is it finally beginning to accept a role in the world more in keeping with its actual status rather than self-delusion? It cannot realistically pursue a global foreign and security policy while mired in the western world’s sickliest economy. It is no longer capable of mounting a military intervention of any note. It knows it has to prioritise.
The childish Johnsonian “global Britain” mantra is being replaced by “patient diplomacy”. Britain is no longer interested in “dictating or telling others what they should do”, declared James Cleverly, foreign secretary, in December. Instead it wants relationships “based on shared interests and common principles”. There is nothing ignoble in that.
Which brings me to Germany, which thinks harder than most, that takes the practice of democracy far more seriously than most. Yet when it came to their response to Putin’s invasion, many in that country drew the wrong lessons from history. The Germans’ instinctive caution about military action led them to refuse to take part in the Iraq folly. Yet it is also responsible for their dithering over Ukraine. Never Again War – Nie wieder Krieg – was not the conclusion to draw from the Nazi era. Yes, war is an option to be avoided where possible; yet succumbing to dictatorship, war crimes and aggression is an even worse outcome.
The west continues to show double standards, to be selective in its choice of allies and adversaries. Saudi Arabia is perhaps the most egregious case in point. No matter how terrible its human rights abuses, the kingdom is never touched. I am not advocating a return to the mindset or the actions of two decades ago. The days of the west setting itself up as the world’s policeman are long gone. Much wider alliances need to be built.
Putin has inadvertently reminded the world of its duty to protect. Such has been the despondency about the state of global democracy, so inexorable has been the rise of populism (aided and abetted by the likes of Putin), few expected such resistance from Ukraine and its allies. The response over the past year has been collective, principled and circumspect – in some ways excessively circumspect.
Iraq was a terrible war, but to cite it in perpetuity as a reason for countries never to confront dictators is to give up on values that are worth fighting for.
John Kampfner is the author of Blair’s Wars and Why the Germans Do It Better
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