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Londons road from Damascus

3 September 2013 @ 1:23 pm
Syrias war is opening new dividing lines in British politics, says David Hayes. Once the consequences play out, Ed Miliband might
have lost more than has David Cameron

More than a routine mediapolitical paroxysm: British prime minister David Cameron speaks during the 29
August debate on Syria in the House of Commons.
PA Wire
HOLD the front page! The classic newspaper battle-cry, redolent of tobacco lips, inky fingers, fevered heads and
rolling presses, is now but a faint echo of prints high era. But on two occasions in London in the last week, the
late night irruption of real-world events into the more sterile atmosphere of the modern newsroom has made it
resound.
First, on the evening of 29 August, David Camerons government lost by thirteen votes a motion allowing it to
make preparations to attack Bashar al-Assads regime in Syria in retaliation for its presumed use of chemical
weapons. Then, two days later, Barack Obamas announcement that he too would be consulting [1]the legislative
branch of government to seek endorsement for any assault which will take until 910 September at least
arrived just as the heavyweight Sunday papers were signing off their lead stories.
In each case, the timing heightened the sense of intense drama that surrounds the Syria debate in Britain,
already much more than a routine mediapolitical paroxysm. After the two decisions and Obamas, while
reflecting his trademark caution, also owes something to the Westminster precedent its clear that the complex
Syria issue has put far more than the front page on hold. It has also ruptured Britains constitutional heart, with
consequences that many hope will be transformative.
WHAT these consequences will be depends on many things, not least how the Syrian nightmare unfolds. A
conflict that began in early 2011 with non-violent protests against local examples of state repression has morphed
[2]into a destructive civil war pitting Bashar al-Assads well-armed regime [3]in Damascus against an inchoate
collection of insurgent groups, with extreme Islamists increasingly to the fore [4]. It is made even more
complicated by its proxy character (with Russia, Iran and Lebanons Hizbollah militia supporting Assad, and
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey backing various guerrilla elements), and its sectarian dimension (with Assad
retaining core allegiance among his fellow Alawis, a Shia offshoot, as well as other minorities, while the
opposition is composed mainly of Syrian and foreign Sunni Muslims). Between these forces the majority of
Syrias twenty million people try to survive amid shattered cities, pulverised services, and vanished trust. Over
100,000 have been killed (approaching the total [5] killed by violence in Iraqs decade of war after 2003) and well
over six million displaced [6]or made refugees [7], mostly in neighbouring countries. There is no end in sight.
A feature of this uneven war is the brutal targeting of civilians, including numerous insurgent car bombs and the
helicopter-borne barrel bombs that are dropped [8]over opposition-held areas by government forces, which
enjoy total air superiority. There have also been frequent reports of the use of chemical weapons by both sides;
though the regimes known possession of huge stocks, its ruthlessness and desperation, as well as the balance of
evidence over the incidents so far, suggest that it is likelier to be culpable. The particular concern over chemical
weapons escalated after an attack on 21 August on Ghouta, an opposition-held civilian area east of Damascus, in
which over 1400 people are accounted dead and thousands affected. As the news and distressing images
filtered through, the drifting diplomatic momentum for action over Syria acquired an urgent new focus.

The United Nations held emergency meetings, and was allowed, belatedly, to send inspectors to the area to
gather evidence. The use of chemical weapons is a crime under international law: they were banned under the
Geneva Protocol [9] in 1925, a commitment renewed by the Chemical Weapons Convention [10] of 1993, which
came into force into 1997. (Syria is one of only five [11] states that have neither signed nor acceded to the
convention.) The starkest spotlight after Ghouta fell on Barack Obama, who had warned [12]the regime on 20
August 2012 that any use of chemical weapons would be considered a red line and could change his calculus
over the possible use of force, implying that the United States would act without UN authority if need be. Many
other states condemned the attack, with Britain and France which collaborated closely in the broadly successful
Libya (2011) and Mali (2012) interventions saying that such a violation could justify a military answer.
Against the background of Syrias tragedy, Britains constitutional procedures look trivial. For all that, over the
next few days the former was to cast an unforgiving judgment on the latter.
THE prospect of even a limited, quasi-punitive air strike on Damascus was immediately controversial in London.
David Cameron recalled parliament from its summer recess for a one-day session, and was accused both of
rushing to meet a Washington-set timetable and neglecting the crucial question of responsibility for the attack
(in the process pre-empting the inspectors report, though identifying the perpetrator is no part of their work). As
irritated MPs returned from their holidays or constituencies, and opinion polls showed most people opposed to
military action (by around 50 to 25 per cent, with a quarter uncertain), Cameron negotiated over the wording of a
government motion with the Labour leader, Ed Miliband.
The texture of these discussions remains elusive, even after leaking on both sides. But the details are clear.
Miliband, in return for supporting the government which he had indicated that, in principle, he would
pressed Cameron to accommodate successive concerns (over legality, the Syrian governments culpability, UN
diplomacy, the inspectors findings, and the need for a subsequent motion authorising British military action);
Cameron accepted them all; Miliband nonetheless, on the night before the debate, tabled an amendment to the
government motion.
The lengthy House of Commons debate [13]revealed widespread cross-party scepticism over intervention in Syria.
Many MPs cited Iraq to warn of the risks of escalation, blowback, and the thinness of the governments strategic
and intelligence case; several invoked constituency polls they had undertaken, and the overwhelming no vote
expressed. Cameron gave his usual assured performance; Milibands, by consent even of friendly papers,
descended to the occasion. After 10pm, the Labour amendment fell on party lines 332220, and was soon
followed [14]by a theatrical climax: the government motion was lost 285272, with the help of thirty Conservative
MPs (and ten Liberal Democrats, out of fifty-five.) As a result, Britain was left with no policy on Syria at all. Even
after the vote, Miliband sought to parade his advantage, and Cameron declared [15]that there would be no UK
military action in any Syrian campaign. (The British parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does
not want to see military action. I get that, and the government will act accordingly.) Some, including the
inescapable Boris Johnson, suggest [16]a reversal might yet be possible, though senior ministers dismiss the
notion of another vote.
In the moment it felt, well, momentous, though the next mornings refurbished front pages and inside comment
couldnt quite agree why. A humiliation for Cameron, the first prime minister since er, 1782, or 1855, or
perhaps 1940 to fail [17]to carry a vote on supreme matters of war. A victory for Miliband, whose tactical nous
and determination display his growing political stature. A triumph for democracy, as tribunes of the people
flocked from the provinces to follow their Tom-Paineite mandates and Edmund-Burkean consciences. A
demonstration of the deep scars of the Iraq experience, with its festering legacy of deceit and mistrust. An end to
the era of humanitarian intervention and all its nefarious works. A herald of national renewal: freedom from
the weight of empire and poodle-status vis--vis the United States, and a new model of foreign policy based on
UN-centred internationalism (idealistic Labourites) or glorious isolation (anti-everyone Tories).
These propositions will continue to be discussed over the coming weeks. They will also reframe much of the
agenda of the forthcoming conference season, which starts with the Trade Union Congress [18] on 811
September (at which Miliband will speak, twelve years after Tony Blair made an impromptu address to the same
gathering on hearing the news from New York). Events in and around Syria the outcome of Washingtons
debate, the fallout of any military action, the real possibility of a Syrian dmarche will overhang everything, as
leaders and parties seek to think through and seek to turn what has happened to their benefit.
Syrias war thus seems to open the possibility of change both in matters constitutional (such as parliament
formally claiming powers long held by the executive under royal prerogative, including approval of military
action) and those of political direction and even national self-definition. Again, in relation to the terrible
suffering in Syria, all this seems otiose. But history has made the collision, and there is no evading [19]either part
of it.
WHAT and how much will change as a result of parliaments refusal? Almost certainly, much less in the short-tomedium term than is desired by the two groups especially cheered by the vote. First, the just-say-no antiinterventionists (Britains strongest leftright alliance, with the exception of Tony Blair-hatred, which now fuses
political pathology and psychic derangement to an extraordinary degree); second, the seekers of a looser
relationship with the United States (most of whom are on the left, but theres a strong rightist current too). As for
foreign policy, the UN option has over decades operated in British left-speak as a form of moral and political
evasion rather than as any kind of strategy, though on the other side the visceral anti-Europeans and isolationists

(this time mostly on the right, but with a goodly leftist cohort) might gain some added currency as a result of
parliaments decision.
Finally, if the fortunes of Cameron and Miliband are significantly affected by the event, it could be in the opposite
direction to that suggested by commentators on both left [20]and right [21]; for just as the Cameron brand has an
absorptive capacity that gives it resilience, Milibands is brittle and ever experimental. The latters tactical success
at least this was my minor epiphany in witnessing it was advanced with such cynical manipulation, justified
by such cosmic vanity, and revealing of such cleverest-boy-in-the-class immaturity, as to be a worthy subject for
an essay [22]by David Marr. (The most thoughtful columnist of the centre-right, Matthew dAncona, by way of a
blistering dissection [23]of parliamentarist bluster, writes the first draft.) The political arithmetic still favours
Miliband; yet it seems unthinkable that this man can long remain leader of his party, let alone ever become prime
minister.
Most criticism, however, is focusing on Camerons complacency and poor party management before the vote, and
the vagueness of his military plans. (The title of an editorial in the Spectator expresses a widely shared view: A
war without a purpose.) The popular verdict on the Syria vote is strikingly favourable to parliament, and by
extension to Milibands strategy of pursuing a sequential roadmap of negotiation and assurance before any
military action can be contemplated. A BBC poll finds [24]that 71 per cent back the MPs decision (and 67 per cent
say the vaunted special relationship with the United States is today irrelevant.)
No wonder, then, that the more ineffable media panjandrums Yasmin Alibhai-Brown [25], Peter Hitchens [26],
Kevin Maguire [27], Max Hastings [28], and Peter Oborne [29] are riding high on euphoric belief that the eras of
interventionism and being Americas poodle are vaporising. Yet their very hyperbole (admittedly the default
tone of these writers) suggests that in the poker-game of political destiny, many hands are already being vastly
overplayed.
A common mistake, said the great film director Roberto Rossellini, is to render the provisional definitive. Yet the
instant wisdom that 29 August 2013 is a historic turning-point is important in itself, revealing not just war
weariness in the wake of Afghanistan and Iraq but shifts in the social temper: distrust of the political class,
combined with more demanding expectations of it, and a turning inwards as economic pressures continue to
bite. Moreover, the conclusions drawn about the parliamentary mutiny will create their own dynamic, shaping
and accentuating new political dividing lines. Perhaps, at last, Britain is moving beyond its long political misty
season.
Meanwhile, the other Baathist gangster-state is committing genocide against its people, the dominant reality of a
hellish labyrinth. The same choice of evils, pace George Orwell [30], presents itself as in Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo,
Iraq and elsewhere. People and parliament have spoken. But ultimately there is no turning away, and least of all
in Britain will the choice be forever evaded.
David Hayes was Deputy Editor of openDemocracy from 2003 to 2012. He writes each month for Inside Story.
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URL to article: http://inside.org.au/londons-road-from-damascus/
URLs in this post:
[1] consulting : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23916752
[2] morphed : http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8990271/syrias-war-in-miniature-meeting-the-christians-driven-

out-of-qusayr/
[3] regime : http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300197228
[4] increasingly to the fore: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/0901/As-US-weighs-war-fears-ofpower-of-jihadis-in-Syria
[5] total: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
[6] displaced : http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/07/201371784449311867.html
[7] refugees: http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/syria.php
[8] dropped : http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/08/30/dispatches-death-above-incendiary-bombs-syria
[9] Geneva Protocol: http://www.un.org/disarmament/WMD/Bio/1925GenevaProtocol.shtml
[10] Chemical Weapons Convention: http://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons-convention/
[11] only five: http://www.opcw.org/about-opcw/non-member-states/
[12] warned : http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-issues-syria-red-line-warning-onchemical-weapons/2012/08/20/ba5d26ec-eaf7-11e1-b811-09036bcb182b_story.html
[13] debate : http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm130829/debtext/130829-0001.htm
[14] followed : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23892783
[15] declared : http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=2013-08-29b.1555.3
[16] suggest : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10279546/The-delayed-attack-on-Syriais-good-for-Britain-and-the-PM.html
[17] fail : http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2013/08/29/labour-and-the-tories-go-to-war-behind-the-scenes
[18] Trade Union Congress: http://www.tuc.org.uk/the_tuc/index.cfm?mins=452&minors=62&majorsubjectID=19
[19] evading : http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/710d67fc-0be6-11e3-8840-00144feabdc0.html?
ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct
[20] left : http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/29/no-10-curses-but-empire-is-over
[21] right: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/08/syria-defeat-what-next-for-david-cameron/
[22] essay : http://www.smh.com.au/national/we-need-to-talk-about-kevin--rudd-that-is-20100607-xnv5.html
[23] dissection : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10277616/A-nauseating-preeningand-grubby-carnival-of-inaction.html
[24] finds : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23931479
[25] Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-special-relationship-is-over-at-longlast-8793227.html
[26] Peter Hitchens: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2408071/PETER-HITCHENS-David-Cameronvainglorious-fantasist-He-quit.html
[27] Kevin Maguire: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/syria-commons-defeat-david-cameron2237472#ixzz2dQsyxm5D
[28] Max Hastings: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2407552/Syria-vote-A-disaster-No-high-time-Britainstopped-Uncle-Sams-poodle.html
[29] Peter Oborne: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10271248/The-rush-to-judgmenton-Syria-is-a-catastrophic-and-deadly-error.html
[30] George Orwell: http://books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-87140-462-6/
[31] Image: mailto:?subject=Check out http%3A%2F%2Finside.org.au%2Flondons-road-from-damascus%2F
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[39] Britains military complex: http://inside.org.au/britains-military-complex/
[40] Election 2013: The view from up above: http://inside.org.au/election-2013-the-view-from-up-above/
[41] A politics out of time: http://inside.org.au/a-politics-out-of-time/
[42] Big Society vs DIY World: http://inside.org.au/big-society-vs-diy-world/
[43] Ken Loachs dreamland: http://inside.org.au/ken-loachs-dreamland/
[44] Margaret Thatcher, between myth and politics: http://inside.org.au/margaret-thatcher-between-myth-and-politics/
[45] Britain and Europe: living together, apart: http://inside.org.au/britain-and-europe-living-together-apart/
[46] Britains political misty season: http://inside.org.au/political-misty-season/
[47] An Olympics fantasy: http://inside.org.au/an-olympics-fantasy/
[48] A holiday from reality: http://inside.org.au/a-holiday-from-reality/