:00:00. > :00:09.Now, don't forget, I'll be back with a full bullet not news at the top of
:00:10. > :00:25.the hour, but now it is Dateline London. `` a full bulletin of news.
:00:26. > :00:35.Hello and welcome to Dateline London. For the third time in over
:00:36. > :00:38.20 years, the United Kingdom is military action in Iraq. We will
:00:39. > :00:43.devote the question ` when it comes to
:00:44. > :00:47.interventions in governments know what they are
:00:48. > :00:51.doing? they do know what they are doing,
:00:52. > :00:56.what they are it achievable? We're joined by a
:00:57. > :01:06.French Algerian Toynbee from the Guardian, and
:01:07. > :01:11.Stryker McGuire. That big question, given the brutality of Islamic
:01:12. > :01:18.State, as they call themselves, is it necessary to engage in some sort
:01:19. > :01:21.of action, and is the West right in doing so? You are asking about the
:01:22. > :01:24.legacy the Muslim world, the
:01:25. > :01:32.straightforward answer West hardly knows what it is doing
:01:33. > :01:35.when it attacks Muslim countries. Just look at the muddled records
:01:36. > :01:42.the Western countries such as Afghanistan or indeed Iraq. I spent
:01:43. > :01:46.time reporting from Libya as well, where mainly British and French air
:01:47. > :01:51.strikes blasted Colonel Gaddafi's regime to pieces. French and British
:01:52. > :01:54.jets decided to take sides in a civil war and bring about regime
:01:55. > :02:01.change, and look at in the hands of Islamic extremists,
:02:02. > :02:05.every bit as murderous and under Mike Ruddock as Gaddafi ``
:02:06. > :02:10.undemocratic. So Western military force as time and again proved to be
:02:11. > :02:17.a failure in the Middle East, and there is a very strong argument that
:02:18. > :02:23.the Islamic State, IS, is a direct result of the illegal Iraq War, and
:02:24. > :02:27.the view that violence produces more violence certainly holds up in all
:02:28. > :02:31.these cases. So yes, you know, air strikes can go on indefinitely, as
:02:32. > :02:34.they did in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, the war went
:02:35. > :02:39.on for a very long time, but this idea that IS will just disappear
:02:40. > :02:50.overnight is absolutely nonsense. What are you make of the argument
:02:51. > :02:56.made by the British Government yesterday that because there were
:02:57. > :03:03.mistakes in the past we should not act now? The main difference with
:03:04. > :03:08.this intervention is that IS is a well`defined group. There is no
:03:09. > :03:14.ambiguity. There is not much ambiguity about them. They present a
:03:15. > :03:22.clear and present danger. They are very well defined as an evil enemy.
:03:23. > :03:28.There is a belief they should be destroyed. What this intervention
:03:29. > :03:32.highlights, and the way it has been brought about, is not only the
:03:33. > :03:37.typical, muddled way of Western meddling if you like in the Arab
:03:38. > :03:43.world, but also in consistency. It is commendable to take an ethical
:03:44. > :03:45.stance to try to destroy IS. We have not seen this stance reflected when
:03:46. > :03:53.it came Palestinians by the thousands in the
:03:54. > :03:58.summer by Israel. The best we can achieve in relation to IS is to
:03:59. > :04:03.destroy its capabilities and tried to cut off its funding. Those
:04:04. > :04:06.arguments are not ultimately accepted that they have played a
:04:07. > :04:15.part in the fact that President Obama took a
:04:16. > :04:22.long time to come to a decision in the 1st place. People do understand
:04:23. > :04:27.done well. There is not a single action in
:04:28. > :04:36.channelled success. President Obama knows that. I can see how we have
:04:37. > :04:43.come to this point. I can see how we arrived where we are today.
:04:44. > :04:48.virtually impossible to see how it will not turn out badly in some way.
:04:49. > :04:55.happening. We can protect some people. You certainly cannot destroy
:04:56. > :05:00.probably ISIS. You definitely cannot destroy jihadis. You probably can
:05:01. > :05:09.make it worse. That is what has happened every time. It is not like
:05:10. > :05:15.the last time we did this was in the 19th century. It was
:05:16. > :05:23.years ago. Then it was the decade before that. Implicit in what you
:05:24. > :05:28.are saying is protecting the Azzidis was a good thing. Some people felt
:05:29. > :05:37.there should be no intervention, ever. There are some people who
:05:38. > :05:41.believe that. Yes, I can see why you would want to protect a group of
:05:42. > :05:48.people who are about to be destroyed. I can also see how the
:05:49. > :05:57.beheadings would inflame opinion, which basically, you know, in this
:05:58. > :06:01.country and in the United States, kind of opened a window. It is a
:06:02. > :06:06.window of opportunity. Now we can justify doing something. People are
:06:07. > :06:12.so appalled by what is going on. Where do you think the Iranian
:06:13. > :06:19.government is in all of this and what is the role of the
:06:20. > :06:28.Revolutionary guard in Iraq? After spending $1 trillion, there has been
:06:29. > :06:32.a failure in Iraq. One reason was United States policy has been to
:06:33. > :06:41.concentrate leadership within the sheer`macro community without having
:06:42. > :06:46.a good governance. `` the Shia community. What is happening in Iraq
:06:47. > :06:53.is a reflection of the policies that have been taking place in Iran as
:06:54. > :06:58.well. At the same time, Iran is being brought in from the cold.
:06:59. > :07:05.Certainly, if there is 1 power, one country, that knows what is going on
:07:06. > :07:11.and how to deal with Isis`macro through violent and all of that, it
:07:12. > :07:16.is the Iranians regime. There has been the de facto cooperation
:07:17. > :07:24.between the United States and the Iranian forces on the ground. This
:07:25. > :07:29.is through either the Iraqi government or through certain other
:07:30. > :07:34.parties. At the same time, let's not forget, the problem with Iraq has
:07:35. > :07:43.been the lack of proper governance. Even now, when you think about Isis,
:07:44. > :07:46.what is it made of? There is a very good report that was
:07:47. > :07:55.the Conservative Middle East Council. They had visited Iraq in
:07:56. > :08:02.September. What it says is, Isis is made up of the good, the bad and the
:08:03. > :08:07.ugly. The good of the tribal leaders, the Sunnis, the bad are the
:08:08. > :08:18.hard`core jihadists. They are see most of the time on television.
:08:19. > :08:24.The ugly are the Ba'athists. The 3 of them together have made this
:08:25. > :08:31.is one of the most important thing is that I think the
:08:32. > :08:36.the British, the countries who are coming together
:08:37. > :08:45.kind of vision do they have after this? What political governance...
:08:46. > :08:48.The idea in 2003 that American and British soldiers would be welcomed
:08:49. > :08:53.with people bearing roses. It would be a thriving democracy in Iraq. It
:08:54. > :09:01.did not look particularly solid at the time. It looks ludicrous now. It
:09:02. > :09:07.makes you weep to look back. We will shine a light over
:09:08. > :09:12.Middle East and everything will come right because Iraq will be a great,
:09:13. > :09:17.pro`Western gem of Western`style democracy. What insanity! I do not
:09:18. > :09:20.think, when you look at the debate in the House of Commons in Britain
:09:21. > :09:26.yesterday, I do not think ever seen a country more reluctant
:09:27. > :09:31.to go to war and yet almost universally with a very heavy heart
:09:32. > :09:38.agreed to a very minimalist act. Six planes, a token, a gesture Chu say,
:09:39. > :09:45.we are with you, America, but only in Iraq. `` to say. We are trying to
:09:46. > :09:50.support the government which has called us in, which looks slightly
:09:51. > :09:55.more inclusive than the previous one. Can we protect them from Isis
:09:56. > :10:03.taking over? We probably cannot reclaim any ground that Isis has got
:10:04. > :10:06.that you might be able to stop them in their tracks and
:10:07. > :10:11.from committing genocide. Perhaps you can just contain them in places.
:10:12. > :10:19.That is a reasonable objective but how long for? What is the exit
:10:20. > :10:24.strategy? Are you there forever? Six planes is not serious. We do not
:10:25. > :10:26.feel serious. The reason we are there, oddly enough, is
:10:27. > :10:30.because of Ukraine. Everything is connected. If we need the Americans
:10:31. > :10:36.to stay as the defenders of Europe, which they have always been. Europe
:10:37. > :10:39.is very reluctant to spend money on defence itself with Putin on the
:10:40. > :10:47.doorstep, you about your allies will do if they
:10:48. > :10:51.ask you to do something, you sort of have to go.
:10:52. > :10:56.and a gesture of friendship to an ally we need. Let's pick up the
:10:57. > :11:03.sectarian question which is underlying some of this. Surely,
:11:04. > :11:12.whatever the cover that has been given to the British by having some
:11:13. > :11:17.Sunni allied states, too many Sunni people, as opposed to their
:11:18. > :11:20.governments, this may look like an intervention on the side. Who does
:11:21. > :11:31.it benefit? It benefits in Tehran, Iraq, President Assad and the
:11:32. > :11:40.Alawites. What the West is trying to achieve 1st and foremost,
:11:41. > :11:46.particularly America, is that they have strong Arab allies. It is not
:11:47. > :11:51.America going it alone or the UK being their prime ally in this
:11:52. > :11:55.intervention. I very much agree that Iran has prime role to play in all
:11:56. > :12:03.of this. A sheer`macro Irani would upset a Sunni Saudi Arabia in
:12:04. > :12:10.joining the coalition. There is a lot of hypocrisy. Let's not forget
:12:11. > :12:23.that Saudi Arabia was fuelling the civil war. It was ploughing millions
:12:24. > :12:27.of dollars into Al Qaeda. The relationship between Saudi Arabia
:12:28. > :12:35.and its Western allies, compliant allies, like Britain and Saudi
:12:36. > :12:46.Arabia, is largely a pragmatic and unprincipled one. The amount of
:12:47. > :12:51.Saudi Arabia 's oil production can effectively buy them everything in
:12:52. > :12:56.terms of interest and influence. We have a very lucrative trade
:12:57. > :13:00.partnership and bilateral contract between Saudi Arabia and Britain,
:13:01. > :13:09.which is worth more than 15,000,000,000 pounds a year. `` ?15
:13:10. > :13:19.million. We must stop this rank hypocrisy. At the same time, we will
:13:20. > :13:24.see a new Iraq emerging. It will be a more federal Iraq at best. I think
:13:25. > :13:31.the Peshmerga in the Kurdish areas will not fight Isis in stead of the
:13:32. > :13:40.Iraqi military. It has just faded away. As you say, trillions of
:13:41. > :13:46.dollars have been spent in building up this force. In Afghanistan, we
:13:47. > :13:51.built up this force and it was great. Faced with a small number of
:13:52. > :13:57.determined people, they melt away. They melt away because their hearts
:13:58. > :14:04.are not in it. Their hearts are not in the central government. What we
:14:05. > :14:07.are going to see perhaps would beat division between the Shi'ites, the
:14:08. > :14:15.border between Iraq and Iran has been in existence since the 16th
:14:16. > :14:23.century. There was the Ottoman Empire. Then you will have a Kurdish
:14:24. > :14:37.section to the country and also a Sunni dominated area. Do you see any
:14:38. > :14:40.chance at all of Saudi Arabia and Iran coming to terms to say,
:14:41. > :14:45.listen, it is in both of our interest to stop this? We will
:14:46. > :14:52.forgive Saudi Arabia for having fuelled this in the 1st place. Do
:14:53. > :14:56.you see any chance of that? Right now, it is back channels and
:14:57. > :15:04.low`level. They are working. Certainly the United States and the
:15:05. > :15:07.European allies, they all want Tehran and Saudi Arabia to come
:15:08. > :15:12.together. You pointed it out best, you created the problem. Russia will
:15:13. > :15:18.be a problem. How together to maintain this world politics, world
:15:19. > :15:23.balance, when you have Russia and the Security Council becoming more
:15:24. > :15:29.and more of a headache to everybody. Did anybody have a clue what success
:15:30. > :15:36.would look like in this? Isis will not fade away. Presumably, they can
:15:37. > :15:38.be kept back. They cannot strut around as they have been in the
:15:39. > :15:47.movement, effectively a Cabrillo movement, from the air, it will not
:15:48. > :15:54.happen. `` a gorilla movement. It is hard to see how this will ever be
:15:55. > :16:01.resolved. It might be really short term success, success over a period
:16:02. > :16:07.of weeks, where you have protected would`be refugees and there is less
:16:08. > :16:13.violence and so forth. When you see this situation, it is like... It is
:16:14. > :16:27.like the concentric circles of a tree. Or hell! It is like... You
:16:28. > :16:33.solve one problem, let's say, Isis. Let's say some have you managed to
:16:34. > :16:40.improve the situation on the border. The Kurds have taken more
:16:41. > :16:54.territory in not Iraq. Turkey is worried about what will happen and
:16:55. > :17:02.what will happen to Assad matters. You have Ukraine, you have it wrong
:17:03. > :17:07.and Saudi Arabia. You have the UK, the US and Europe. I do not know
:17:08. > :17:12.about success. It is virtually impossible to imagine what it would
:17:13. > :17:17.look like. After World War I when these borders were drawn, there was
:17:18. > :17:25.a contract in Versailles, people came up with a plan. At the end of
:17:26. > :17:31.the Cold War, it just kind of happened and nobody came up with
:17:32. > :17:34.Europe should look like. There has been no
:17:35. > :17:37.I think people believed by the of the Middle East.
:17:38. > :17:40.I think people believed by the end of the Soviet empire that
:17:41. > :17:42.self`determination was it, countries should be allowed to choose what
:17:43. > :17:49.they want, and it ignored all of the realpolitik that, in the end, the
:17:50. > :17:56.big powers lean heavily who is weak. Somebody pretended
:17:57. > :18:01.democracy on its own would make these places free. You are
:18:02. > :18:06.free if you are being lent on. Many of these
:18:07. > :18:09.Nations states, they were cobbled together by outsiders. If I may add,
:18:10. > :18:16.one of the problems from onwards was the quantification of
:18:17. > :18:20.democracy, one man, one vote, whereas it is more than numbers.
:18:21. > :18:25.Democracy is based on certain values and principles. Certainly, women's
:18:26. > :18:30.rights is number one, and what happened in Iraq after 2003, all
:18:31. > :18:44.Iraqi women, doctors, professionals, they had to go back under the threat
:18:45. > :18:49.of the veil, so hopefully one of the lessons that they will learn from
:18:50. > :18:55.2003 is that to involve civil society, to bring in women, bring in
:18:56. > :19:04.different groups, different religions and NGOs, to see, what is
:19:05. > :19:07.the vision they want to have after ISIS has gone? It
:19:08. > :19:11.generational struggle, because without the participation of the
:19:12. > :19:18.Sunnis, nothing will happen, ordinary Sunnis. Yes, I think that
:19:19. > :19:23.although there is a strong coalition that is determined to crush IS, I
:19:24. > :19:27.think the way the different countries go about doing it is
:19:28. > :19:32.different. For example, the French approach, you know, we don't
:19:33. > :19:36.normally associate French left`wing governments with hawkish approach to
:19:37. > :19:43.foreign policy, or indeed with air strikes, and I do believe that this
:19:44. > :19:45.global fight against radical Islam is in fact providing a great deal of
:19:46. > :19:51.relief to President Holland, whose domestic approval rating is at 13%.
:19:52. > :20:02.`` Hollande. Foreign adventures, it almost provides, you know, something
:20:03. > :20:06.for a struggling head of state. He has sent troops to African
:20:07. > :20:11.countries, but I do not think we will see the same level of
:20:12. > :20:14.commitment in Iraq. I do think it is clear that Cameron will have gained
:20:15. > :20:20.out of this. He will not have lost, because he has the support of the
:20:21. > :20:32.other parties, whatever will not really be his fault, but I
:20:33. > :20:39.do not think you can say he has gone to war in that spirit of, I know,
:20:40. > :20:47.election. I think it would be unfair to say that
:20:48. > :20:55.did not want to go back into Iraq, there
:20:56. > :21:06.we ought to fix it. Do you fix it by breaking it a bit
:21:07. > :21:15.secret that the French have been paying hundreds of millions of
:21:16. > :21:27.April, and they need to coordinate all of that.
:21:28. > :21:41.tackle the real problem! In the few minutes we
:21:42. > :21:54.this week? The way in which he passed the problem,
:21:55. > :22:07.think it is. I think there is absolutely no question that the
:22:08. > :22:22.some overwhelming reason, why we should. You have the Prime
:22:23. > :22:38.small gesture of support. I think he was absolutely right to say,
:22:39. > :22:54.that there is no exit strategy, there is
:22:55. > :23:11.More than that, he came across as wishy`washy with no
:23:12. > :23:23.opposite. He comes across as a very intelligent
:23:24. > :23:34.would have been a bad mistake. But a leader of a
:23:35. > :23:46.supporting in Syria? We had no idea.
:23:47. > :23:56.are on in Syria. At least we have got a site to be on in Iraq.
:23:57. > :24:06.changing power. This is a shrinking power. The US is also a
:24:07. > :24:14.But this country is getting smaller geopolitically, and it
:24:15. > :24:22.Minister has to figure out, what is our foreign policy? So far it seems
:24:23. > :24:30.second strand is to protect UK business
:24:31. > :24:39.has been, essentially, to do what the US does, except that then it
:24:40. > :24:45.now we are doing it. So this country is going
:24:46. > :24:52.thus! We haven't had a foreign policy
:24:53. > :24:58.the war. Oh. In the minute we have got left, the
:24:59. > :25:02.solution to what is fundamentally an Arab problem?
:25:03. > :25:06.be putting more trust in giving more responsibility to the neighbours of
:25:07. > :25:16.Iraq. Including Turkey. Iran is not an Arab state. I am aware of that!
:25:17. > :25:23.Iran has capability, Turkey is part of NATO. The UAE, I was in the UAE
:25:24. > :25:26.last week, and there is a strong determination to prove to the world
:25:27. > :25:32.that IS has nothing to do Islam, it is totally an Islamic, and
:25:33. > :25:35.they want to show that it doesn't represent their culture, their
:25:36. > :25:40.values, let them act... It is for those countries who call
:25:41. > :25:46.themselves the Islamic, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, to start treating
:25:47. > :25:51.that citizens much better, like the women, the Sue `` they have to set
:25:52. > :25:59.an example on how to behave. That is it for Dateline London from next
:26:00. > :26:02.week, you can comment on the programme at Twitter at @gavinesler.
:26:03. > :26:36.Thank you for watching and goodbye. Much of September has been
:26:37. > :26:41.relatively dry and warm, and that is the way we're going