David Cameron Analysed

An article has been published under the Prime Minister's name in the 'Sunday Telegraph' on the current crisis in Iraq.

You can find it here :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11038121/David-Cameron-Isil-poses-a-direct-and-deadly-threat-to-Britain.html

Here I attempt to analyze that article.

My comments are in bold and marked with an asterisk *:

'This poisonous extremism is a direct threat to Britain'

 

Stability. Security. The peace of mind that comes from being able to get a decent job and provide for your family, in a country that you feel has a good future ahead of it and that treats people fairly.

*Note the Blairite tone, verbless sentences, if sentences they can be called, in an outdated red-top newspaper style from the 1980s.

In a nutshell, that is what people in Britain want – and what the Government I lead is dedicated to building.

Britain – our economy, our security, our future – must come first. After a deep and damaging recession, and our involvement in long and difficult conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is hardly surprising that so many people say to me when seeing the tragedies unfolding on their television screens: “Yes, let’s help with aid, but let’s not get any more involved.”

I agree that we should avoid sending armies to fight or occupy.

*Does he? See if he sticks to this later on, after most readers will have peeled off, reassured that British troops (apparently) won’t be sent back to Iraq.

 

But we need to recognise that the brighter future we long for requires a long-term plan for our security as well as for our economy.

 

*Is this in fact true? Surely we only increase or safeguard our security if our actions do not make new enemies, and do not needlessly expose our soldiers to death or injury? He is making the case for intervention before he has explained precisely why it is justified in this place.

True security will only be achieved if we use all our resources – aid, diplomacy, our military prowess – to help bring about a more stable world. Today, when every nation is so immediately interconnected, we cannot turn a blind eye and assume that there will not be a cost for us if we do.

*What ‘military prowess’ ? Is the Prime Minister unaware of the enormous cuts he himself has made in the Army and the Navy? 'To the bone' is inadequate to describe them. He has cut deep *into* the bone.  Does he not realise that many of the most experienced officers and NCOs have left as a result, and that plans to make up the gap with reserves have run into serious trouble?

 

 

The creation of an extremist caliphate in the heart of Iraq and extending into Syria is not a problem miles away from home.

*Actually it may well be such a problem, or at least one we have managed to cope with before. The word ‘extremist’ is notoriously subjective,  but many people would regard the governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (and of some of the Gulf States too) as being 'extremist’ by the standards of 21st-century western law-governed democracies. A case could be made for classifying the People’s Republic of China as ‘extremist’ , and I personally think the word could be applied to Turkey’s new President Erdogan. Well, Mr Cameron and his colleagues cannot keep away from Peking, and Prince Charles is often in the Gulf. We seem to have found a modus vivendi with Pakistan. Are we as fussy as we claim to be? We have in the past had to come to accommodations with all kinds of people we much disliked, but didn’t have the power to remove, notably the Russian Bolsheviks. Oil-producing countries need customers, and oil-consuming countries need sellers. In the past they have tended to overcome strong dislike.

 

 

Nor is it a problem that should be defined by a war 10 years ago.

 

* This is one of the key points of the article. What it means is ‘because the 2003 Iraq war (which the Tories supported) was a catastrophe, there’s no reason to think that this one will be. Well, the pretext is different – atrocities rather than WMD. But action to prevent atrocities can be limited to that, which is why Mr Cameron is trying to widen the issue to national security.

 

It is our concern here and now. Because if we do not act to stem the onslaught of this exceptionally dangerous terrorist movement, it will only grow stronger until it can target us on the streets of Britain.

*This is highly questionable. Much the same thing was said for years, to justify our pointless engagement in Afghanistan. Why precisely should the Islamic State want to target the streets of Britain?  I'm not saying it won't, just that 'd like to know why it should. Please show your working.

We already know that it has the murderous intent. Indeed, the first Isil-inspired terrorist acts on the continent of Europe have already taken place.

*Could you, or anybody, please say which acts these were? 

Our first priority has of course been to deal with the acute humanitarian crisis in Iraq. We should be proud of the role that our brave armed services and aid workers have played in the international effort. British citizens have risked their lives to get 80 tons of vital supplies to the Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar. It is right that we use our aid programme to respond rapidly to a situation like this: Britain has given £13 million to support the aid effort. We also helped to plan a detailed international rescue operation and we remain ready and flexible to respond to the ongoing challenges in or around Dahuk, where more than 450,000 people have increased the population by 50 per cent.

 

* Excellent. Who could object? But, as we now see, humanitarian relief is somehow not enough.

 

But a humanitarian response alone is not enough. We also need a broader political, diplomatic and security response.

*Why, exactly? This seems to me to an unsupported assertion.

 

For that, we must understand the true nature of the threat we face. We should be clear: this is not the “War on Terror”, nor is it a war of religions. It is a struggle for decency, tolerance and moderation in our modern world. It is a battle against a poisonous ideology that is condemned by all faiths and by all faith leaders, whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim.

*In what important way does this differ from the “War on Terror” or a war of religions, except that these ideas are discredited and he does not want to be associated with them?

What is a battle against an ideology? How do you do that? Also, if this ideology is condemned by all faiths (including the one the ISIS militants follow with such zeal and passion), then why do they continue to behave as they do? 

Of course there is conflict between Shias and Sunnis, but that is the wrong way to see what is really happening. What we are witnessing is actually a battle between Islam on the one hand and extremists who want to abuse Islam on the other. These extremists, often funded by fanatics living far away from the battlefields, pervert the Islamic faith as a way of justifying their warped and barbaric ideology – and they do so not just in Iraq and Syria but right across the world, from Boko Haram and al-Shabaab to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

*Interesting. Who precisely are these ‘fanatics living far from the battlefield’?  

So this threat cannot simply be removed by airstrikes alone. We need a tough, intelligent and patient long-term approach that can defeat the terrorist threat at source.

First, we need a firm security response, whether that is military action to go after the terrorists,

*So military action is, after all, being considered. See above.

 

international co-operation on intelligence and counter-terrorism or uncompromising action against terrorists at home. On Friday we agreed with our European partners that we will provide equipment directly to the Kurdish forces; we are now identifying what we might supply, from body armour to specialist counter-explosive equipment.

*What about actual weapons? And what about allowing Kurdistan to sell its oil on the world market, which it is presently banned from doing? Could it be that we are coy or reluctant because we are afraid of what will happen if we allow Kurdistan to become fully independent of Baghdad? Not surprising if so. An armed and oil-rich Kurdistan would cause major destabilisation of the whole region. Iran and what is left of Iraq would be very reluctant to allow such a thing, and Turkey’s attitude cannot be predicted. Yet it is hard to see how such a thing can now be avoided.

 

We have also secured a United Nations Security Council resolution to disrupt the flows of finance to Isil, sanction those who are seeking to recruit for it and encourage countries to do all they can to prevent foreign fighters joining the extremist cause.

Here in Britain we have recently introduced stronger powers through our Immigration Act to deprive naturalised Britons of their citizenship if they are suspected of being involved in terrorist activities. We have taken down 28,000 pieces of terrorist-related material from the web, including 46 Isil-related videos. And I have also discussed the police response to this growing threat of extremism with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. The position is clear. If people are walking around with Isil flags or trying to recruit people to their terrorist cause, they will be arrested and their materials will be seized. We are a tolerant people, but no tolerance should allow the room for this sort of poisonous extremism in our country.

 

*This is just flailing with gestures, and quite possibly a general threat to civil liberties as well. Laws of this kind are either ineffectual and hard to enforce because they are too vague, or a danger to everyone because they have to contain catch-all clauses which give the police and the courts huge power over the individual.

Alongside a tough security response, there must also be an intelligent political response. We know that terrorist organisations thrive where there is political instability and weak or dysfunctional political institutions. So we must support the building blocks of democracy – the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, the rights of minorities, free media and association and a proper place in society for the army. None of these things can be imposed by the West.

 

*Well, isn’t it odd, in that case, that we have just collaborated with the Ayatollahs in Teheran, in overthrowing Iraq’s democratically-elected Prime Minister? As for the ‘building blocks of democracy’ where, pray are they now in Libya, the country Mr Cameron so breezily ‘liberated’ a few years ago? And where are they in Egypt, whose hard-faced and repressive military junta we support? I could go on. Surely it is time that this idealist guff was dropped?

 

Every country must make its own way. But we can and must play a valuable role in supporting them to do that.

*Or we can make a terrible mess, by intervening without understanding or knowledge, and with an exaggerated idea of our skill and power.

Isil militants have exploited the absence of a unified and representative government in Baghdad. So we strongly welcome the opportunity of a new start with Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Haider al-Abadi. I spoke to him earlier this week and assured him that we will support any attempts to forge a genuinely inclusive government that can unite all Iraqi communities – Sunnis, Shias and Kurds – against the common enemy of Isil, which threatens the way of life of them all.

The international community will rally around this new government. But Iraq’s neighbours in the region are equally vital. So we must work with countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the UAE, Egypt and Turkey against these extremist forces, and perhaps even with Iran, which could choose this moment to engage with the international community against this shared threat. I want Britain to play a leading role in this diplomatic effort. So we will be appointing a Special Representative to the Kurdistan Regional Government and using the Nato summit in Wales and the United Nations General Assembly in New York to help rally support across the international community.

 

*Why no mention of Syria?  Syria is a vital part of the battlefield against ISIS, and if Syria fell to ISIS the whole politics of the Mediterranean and the Levant would indeed to be transformed. Apart form anything else, ISIS would then have a border with Israel, and incredibly dangerous point of friction.

 

ISIS is to a great extent our fault. It grew out of the destabilisation of Syria, which Western countries began as long ago as 2011 for reasons best known to themselves, and which was then reinforced by Gulf-supported foreign fighters overwhelmingly made up of Sunni fanatics. The idea that there is a ‘moderate’ rebel force in Syria is a fantasy. Even where the non-Wahhabi rebels disagree with ISIS, they are too weak to resist it, and must do what it says and hand over their weapons to it on demand.

Finally, while being tough and intelligent, we must also be patient and resolute. We are in the middle of a generational struggle against a poisonous and extremist ideology, which I believe we will be fighting for the rest of my political lifetime.

*This prediction is particularly disturbing. Why should this country be committed to a war which our own Premier says cannot be ended in his lifetime

 

We face in Isil a new threat that is single-minded, determined and unflinching in pursuit of its objectives. Already it controls not just thousands of minds, but thousands of square miles of territory, sweeping aside much of the boundary between Iraq and Syria to carve out its so-called caliphate. It makes no secret of its expansionist aims. Even today it has the ancient city of Aleppo firmly within its sights. And it boasts of its designs on Jordan and Lebanon, and right up to the Turkish border. If it succeeds, we would be facing a terrorist state on the shores of the Mediterranean and bordering a Nato member.

This is a clear danger to Europe and to our security. It is a daunting challenge. But it is not an invincible one, as long as we are now ready and able to summon up the political will to defend our own values and way of life with the same determination, courage and tenacity as we have faced danger before in our history. That is how much is at stake here: we have no choice but to rise to the challenge.

Hitchens’s first rule of political rhetoric is as follows: Whenever a politician says there is no choice or no alternative, he or she means that there is a choice or an alternative, but that they hope nobody will notice. The alternative at the moment is resolute humanitarian action to save the persecuted, combined with extreme and patient caution over deeper involvement. And by patient I don't mean an unending war against an idea we don't like.  The more that Mr Cameron talks of our ‘values and way of life’, whatever he means by that,  the faster the rest of us should count our spoons. General, foggy dangers of this kind are a) beyond the power of governments to combat or overcome and b) risk a state of permament idealist war in which there is never any objective point at which victory (or defeat) can be declared.