Browse content similar to 27/09/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Now, don't forget, I'll be back with a full bullet not news at the top of | :00:00. | :00:09. | |
the hour, but now it is Dateline London. `` a full bulletin of news. | :00:10. | :00:25. | |
Hello and welcome to Dateline London. For the third time in over | :00:26. | :00:35. | |
20 years, the United Kingdom is military action in Iraq. We will | :00:36. | :00:38. | |
devote the question ` when it comes to | :00:39. | :00:43. | |
interventions in governments know what they are | :00:44. | :00:47. | |
doing? they do know what they are doing, | :00:48. | :00:51. | |
what they are it achievable? We're joined by a | :00:52. | :00:56. | |
French Algerian Toynbee from the Guardian, and | :00:57. | :01:06. | |
Stryker McGuire. That big question, given the brutality of Islamic | :01:07. | :01:11. | |
State, as they call themselves, is it necessary to engage in some sort | :01:12. | :01:18. | |
of action, and is the West right in doing so? You are asking about the | :01:19. | :01:21. | |
legacy the Muslim world, the | :01:22. | :01:24. | |
straightforward answer West hardly knows what it is doing | :01:25. | :01:32. | |
when it attacks Muslim countries. Just look at the muddled records | :01:33. | :01:35. | |
the Western countries such as Afghanistan or indeed Iraq. I spent | :01:36. | :01:42. | |
time reporting from Libya as well, where mainly British and French air | :01:43. | :01:46. | |
strikes blasted Colonel Gaddafi's regime to pieces. French and British | :01:47. | :01:51. | |
jets decided to take sides in a civil war and bring about regime | :01:52. | :01:54. | |
change, and look at in the hands of Islamic extremists, | :01:55. | :02:01. | |
every bit as murderous and under Mike Ruddock as Gaddafi `` | :02:02. | :02:05. | |
undemocratic. So Western military force as time and again proved to be | :02:06. | :02:10. | |
a failure in the Middle East, and there is a very strong argument that | :02:11. | :02:17. | |
the Islamic State, IS, is a direct result of the illegal Iraq War, and | :02:18. | :02:23. | |
the view that violence produces more violence certainly holds up in all | :02:24. | :02:27. | |
these cases. So yes, you know, air strikes can go on indefinitely, as | :02:28. | :02:31. | |
they did in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, the war went | :02:32. | :02:34. | |
on for a very long time, but this idea that IS will just disappear | :02:35. | :02:39. | |
overnight is absolutely nonsense. What are you make of the argument | :02:40. | :02:50. | |
made by the British Government yesterday that because there were | :02:51. | :02:56. | |
mistakes in the past we should not act now? The main difference with | :02:57. | :03:03. | |
this intervention is that IS is a well`defined group. There is no | :03:04. | :03:08. | |
ambiguity. There is not much ambiguity about them. They present a | :03:09. | :03:14. | |
clear and present danger. They are very well defined as an evil enemy. | :03:15. | :03:22. | |
There is a belief they should be destroyed. What this intervention | :03:23. | :03:28. | |
highlights, and the way it has been brought about, is not only the | :03:29. | :03:32. | |
typical, muddled way of Western meddling if you like in the Arab | :03:33. | :03:37. | |
world, but also in consistency. It is commendable to take an ethical | :03:38. | :03:43. | |
stance to try to destroy IS. We have not seen this stance reflected when | :03:44. | :03:45. | |
it came Palestinians by the thousands in the | :03:46. | :03:53. | |
summer by Israel. The best we can achieve in relation to IS is to | :03:54. | :03:58. | |
destroy its capabilities and tried to cut off its funding. Those | :03:59. | :04:03. | |
arguments are not ultimately accepted that they have played a | :04:04. | :04:06. | |
part in the fact that President Obama took a | :04:07. | :04:15. | |
long time to come to a decision in the 1st place. People do understand | :04:16. | :04:22. | |
done well. There is not a single action in | :04:23. | :04:27. | |
channelled success. President Obama knows that. I can see how we have | :04:28. | :04:36. | |
come to this point. I can see how we arrived where we are today. | :04:37. | :04:43. | |
virtually impossible to see how it will not turn out badly in some way. | :04:44. | :04:48. | |
happening. We can protect some people. You certainly cannot destroy | :04:49. | :04:55. | |
probably ISIS. You definitely cannot destroy jihadis. You probably can | :04:56. | :05:00. | |
make it worse. That is what has happened every time. It is not like | :05:01. | :05:09. | |
the last time we did this was in the 19th century. It was | :05:10. | :05:15. | |
years ago. Then it was the decade before that. Implicit in what you | :05:16. | :05:23. | |
are saying is protecting the Azzidis was a good thing. Some people felt | :05:24. | :05:28. | |
there should be no intervention, ever. There are some people who | :05:29. | :05:37. | |
believe that. Yes, I can see why you would want to protect a group of | :05:38. | :05:41. | |
people who are about to be destroyed. I can also see how the | :05:42. | :05:48. | |
beheadings would inflame opinion, which basically, you know, in this | :05:49. | :05:57. | |
country and in the United States, kind of opened a window. It is a | :05:58. | :06:01. | |
window of opportunity. Now we can justify doing something. People are | :06:02. | :06:06. | |
so appalled by what is going on. Where do you think the Iranian | :06:07. | :06:12. | |
government is in all of this and what is the role of the | :06:13. | :06:19. | |
Revolutionary guard in Iraq? After spending $1 trillion, there has been | :06:20. | :06:28. | |
a failure in Iraq. One reason was United States policy has been to | :06:29. | :06:32. | |
concentrate leadership within the sheer`macro community without having | :06:33. | :06:41. | |
a good governance. `` the Shia community. What is happening in Iraq | :06:42. | :06:46. | |
is a reflection of the policies that have been taking place in Iran as | :06:47. | :06:53. | |
well. At the same time, Iran is being brought in from the cold. | :06:54. | :06:58. | |
Certainly, if there is 1 power, one country, that knows what is going on | :06:59. | :07:05. | |
and how to deal with Isis`macro through violent and all of that, it | :07:06. | :07:11. | |
is the Iranians regime. There has been the de facto cooperation | :07:12. | :07:16. | |
between the United States and the Iranian forces on the ground. This | :07:17. | :07:24. | |
is through either the Iraqi government or through certain other | :07:25. | :07:29. | |
parties. At the same time, let's not forget, the problem with Iraq has | :07:30. | :07:34. | |
been the lack of proper governance. Even now, when you think about Isis, | :07:35. | :07:43. | |
what is it made of? There is a very good report that was | :07:44. | :07:46. | |
the Conservative Middle East Council. They had visited Iraq in | :07:47. | :07:55. | |
September. What it says is, Isis is made up of the good, the bad and the | :07:56. | :08:02. | |
ugly. The good of the tribal leaders, the Sunnis, the bad are the | :08:03. | :08:07. | |
hard`core jihadists. They are see most of the time on television. | :08:08. | :08:18. | |
The ugly are the Ba'athists. The 3 of them together have made this | :08:19. | :08:24. | |
is one of the most important thing is that I think the | :08:25. | :08:31. | |
the British, the countries who are coming together | :08:32. | :08:36. | |
kind of vision do they have after this? What political governance... | :08:37. | :08:45. | |
The idea in 2003 that American and British soldiers would be welcomed | :08:46. | :08:48. | |
with people bearing roses. It would be a thriving democracy in Iraq. It | :08:49. | :08:53. | |
did not look particularly solid at the time. It looks ludicrous now. It | :08:54. | :09:01. | |
makes you weep to look back. We will shine a light over | :09:02. | :09:07. | |
Middle East and everything will come right because Iraq will be a great, | :09:08. | :09:12. | |
pro`Western gem of Western`style democracy. What insanity! I do not | :09:13. | :09:17. | |
think, when you look at the debate in the House of Commons in Britain | :09:18. | :09:20. | |
yesterday, I do not think ever seen a country more reluctant | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
to go to war and yet almost universally with a very heavy heart | :09:27. | :09:31. | |
agreed to a very minimalist act. Six planes, a token, a gesture Chu say, | :09:32. | :09:38. | |
we are with you, America, but only in Iraq. `` to say. We are trying to | :09:39. | :09:45. | |
support the government which has called us in, which looks slightly | :09:46. | :09:50. | |
more inclusive than the previous one. Can we protect them from Isis | :09:51. | :09:55. | |
taking over? We probably cannot reclaim any ground that Isis has got | :09:56. | :10:03. | |
that you might be able to stop them in their tracks and | :10:04. | :10:06. | |
from committing genocide. Perhaps you can just contain them in places. | :10:07. | :10:11. | |
That is a reasonable objective but how long for? What is the exit | :10:12. | :10:19. | |
strategy? Are you there forever? Six planes is not serious. We do not | :10:20. | :10:24. | |
feel serious. The reason we are there, oddly enough, is | :10:25. | :10:26. | |
because of Ukraine. Everything is connected. If we need the Americans | :10:27. | :10:30. | |
to stay as the defenders of Europe, which they have always been. Europe | :10:31. | :10:36. | |
is very reluctant to spend money on defence itself with Putin on the | :10:37. | :10:39. | |
doorstep, you about your allies will do if they | :10:40. | :10:47. | |
ask you to do something, you sort of have to go. | :10:48. | :10:51. | |
and a gesture of friendship to an ally we need. Let's pick up the | :10:52. | :10:56. | |
sectarian question which is underlying some of this. Surely, | :10:57. | :11:03. | |
whatever the cover that has been given to the British by having some | :11:04. | :11:12. | |
Sunni allied states, too many Sunni people, as opposed to their | :11:13. | :11:17. | |
governments, this may look like an intervention on the side. Who does | :11:18. | :11:20. | |
it benefit? It benefits in Tehran, Iraq, President Assad and the | :11:21. | :11:31. | |
Alawites. What the West is trying to achieve 1st and foremost, | :11:32. | :11:40. | |
particularly America, is that they have strong Arab allies. It is not | :11:41. | :11:46. | |
America going it alone or the UK being their prime ally in this | :11:47. | :11:51. | |
intervention. I very much agree that Iran has prime role to play in all | :11:52. | :11:55. | |
of this. A sheer`macro Irani would upset a Sunni Saudi Arabia in | :11:56. | :12:03. | |
joining the coalition. There is a lot of hypocrisy. Let's not forget | :12:04. | :12:10. | |
that Saudi Arabia was fuelling the civil war. It was ploughing millions | :12:11. | :12:23. | |
of dollars into Al Qaeda. The relationship between Saudi Arabia | :12:24. | :12:27. | |
and its Western allies, compliant allies, like Britain and Saudi | :12:28. | :12:35. | |
Arabia, is largely a pragmatic and unprincipled one. The amount of | :12:36. | :12:46. | |
Saudi Arabia 's oil production can effectively buy them everything in | :12:47. | :12:51. | |
terms of interest and influence. We have a very lucrative trade | :12:52. | :12:56. | |
partnership and bilateral contract between Saudi Arabia and Britain, | :12:57. | :13:00. | |
which is worth more than 15,000,000,000 pounds a year. `` ?15 | :13:01. | :13:09. | |
million. We must stop this rank hypocrisy. At the same time, we will | :13:10. | :13:19. | |
see a new Iraq emerging. It will be a more federal Iraq at best. I think | :13:20. | :13:24. | |
the Peshmerga in the Kurdish areas will not fight Isis in stead of the | :13:25. | :13:31. | |
Iraqi military. It has just faded away. As you say, trillions of | :13:32. | :13:40. | |
dollars have been spent in building up this force. In Afghanistan, we | :13:41. | :13:46. | |
built up this force and it was great. Faced with a small number of | :13:47. | :13:51. | |
determined people, they melt away. They melt away because their hearts | :13:52. | :13:57. | |
are not in it. Their hearts are not in the central government. What we | :13:58. | :14:04. | |
are going to see perhaps would beat division between the Shi'ites, the | :14:05. | :14:07. | |
border between Iraq and Iran has been in existence since the 16th | :14:08. | :14:15. | |
century. There was the Ottoman Empire. Then you will have a Kurdish | :14:16. | :14:23. | |
section to the country and also a Sunni dominated area. Do you see any | :14:24. | :14:37. | |
chance at all of Saudi Arabia and Iran coming to terms to say, | :14:38. | :14:40. | |
listen, it is in both of our interest to stop this? We will | :14:41. | :14:45. | |
forgive Saudi Arabia for having fuelled this in the 1st place. Do | :14:46. | :14:52. | |
you see any chance of that? Right now, it is back channels and | :14:53. | :14:56. | |
low`level. They are working. Certainly the United States and the | :14:57. | :15:04. | |
European allies, they all want Tehran and Saudi Arabia to come | :15:05. | :15:07. | |
together. You pointed it out best, you created the problem. Russia will | :15:08. | :15:12. | |
be a problem. How together to maintain this world politics, world | :15:13. | :15:18. | |
balance, when you have Russia and the Security Council becoming more | :15:19. | :15:23. | |
and more of a headache to everybody. Did anybody have a clue what success | :15:24. | :15:29. | |
would look like in this? Isis will not fade away. Presumably, they can | :15:30. | :15:36. | |
be kept back. They cannot strut around as they have been in the | :15:37. | :15:38. | |
movement, effectively a Cabrillo movement, from the air, it will not | :15:39. | :15:47. | |
happen. `` a gorilla movement. It is hard to see how this will ever be | :15:48. | :15:54. | |
resolved. It might be really short term success, success over a period | :15:55. | :16:01. | |
of weeks, where you have protected would`be refugees and there is less | :16:02. | :16:07. | |
violence and so forth. When you see this situation, it is like... It is | :16:08. | :16:13. | |
like the concentric circles of a tree. Or hell! It is like... You | :16:14. | :16:27. | |
solve one problem, let's say, Isis. Let's say some have you managed to | :16:28. | :16:33. | |
improve the situation on the border. The Kurds have taken more | :16:34. | :16:40. | |
territory in not Iraq. Turkey is worried about what will happen and | :16:41. | :16:54. | |
what will happen to Assad matters. You have Ukraine, you have it wrong | :16:55. | :17:02. | |
and Saudi Arabia. You have the UK, the US and Europe. I do not know | :17:03. | :17:07. | |
about success. It is virtually impossible to imagine what it would | :17:08. | :17:12. | |
look like. After World War I when these borders were drawn, there was | :17:13. | :17:17. | |
a contract in Versailles, people came up with a plan. At the end of | :17:18. | :17:25. | |
the Cold War, it just kind of happened and nobody came up with | :17:26. | :17:31. | |
Europe should look like. There has been no | :17:32. | :17:34. | |
I think people believed by the of the Middle East. | :17:35. | :17:37. | |
I think people believed by the end of the Soviet empire that | :17:38. | :17:40. | |
self`determination was it, countries should be allowed to choose what | :17:41. | :17:42. | |
they want, and it ignored all of the realpolitik that, in the end, the | :17:43. | :17:49. | |
big powers lean heavily who is weak. Somebody pretended | :17:50. | :17:56. | |
democracy on its own would make these places free. You are | :17:57. | :18:01. | |
free if you are being lent on. Many of these | :18:02. | :18:06. | |
Nations states, they were cobbled together by outsiders. If I may add, | :18:07. | :18:09. | |
one of the problems from onwards was the quantification of | :18:10. | :18:16. | |
democracy, one man, one vote, whereas it is more than numbers. | :18:17. | :18:20. | |
Democracy is based on certain values and principles. Certainly, women's | :18:21. | :18:25. | |
rights is number one, and what happened in Iraq after 2003, all | :18:26. | :18:30. | |
Iraqi women, doctors, professionals, they had to go back under the threat | :18:31. | :18:44. | |
of the veil, so hopefully one of the lessons that they will learn from | :18:45. | :18:49. | |
2003 is that to involve civil society, to bring in women, bring in | :18:50. | :18:55. | |
different groups, different religions and NGOs, to see, what is | :18:56. | :19:04. | |
the vision they want to have after ISIS has gone? It | :19:05. | :19:07. | |
generational struggle, because without the participation of the | :19:08. | :19:11. | |
Sunnis, nothing will happen, ordinary Sunnis. Yes, I think that | :19:12. | :19:18. | |
although there is a strong coalition that is determined to crush IS, I | :19:19. | :19:23. | |
think the way the different countries go about doing it is | :19:24. | :19:27. | |
different. For example, the French approach, you know, we don't | :19:28. | :19:32. | |
normally associate French left`wing governments with hawkish approach to | :19:33. | :19:36. | |
foreign policy, or indeed with air strikes, and I do believe that this | :19:37. | :19:43. | |
global fight against radical Islam is in fact providing a great deal of | :19:44. | :19:45. | |
relief to President Holland, whose domestic approval rating is at 13%. | :19:46. | :19:51. | |
`` Hollande. Foreign adventures, it almost provides, you know, something | :19:52. | :20:02. | |
for a struggling head of state. He has sent troops to African | :20:03. | :20:06. | |
countries, but I do not think we will see the same level of | :20:07. | :20:11. | |
commitment in Iraq. I do think it is clear that Cameron will have gained | :20:12. | :20:14. | |
out of this. He will not have lost, because he has the support of the | :20:15. | :20:20. | |
other parties, whatever will not really be his fault, but I | :20:21. | :20:32. | |
do not think you can say he has gone to war in that spirit of, I know, | :20:33. | :20:39. | |
election. I think it would be unfair to say that | :20:40. | :20:47. | |
did not want to go back into Iraq, there | :20:48. | :20:55. | |
we ought to fix it. Do you fix it by breaking it a bit | :20:56. | :21:06. | |
secret that the French have been paying hundreds of millions of | :21:07. | :21:15. | |
April, and they need to coordinate all of that. | :21:16. | :21:27. | |
tackle the real problem! In the few minutes we | :21:28. | :21:41. | |
this week? The way in which he passed the problem, | :21:42. | :21:54. | |
think it is. I think there is absolutely no question that the | :21:55. | :22:07. | |
some overwhelming reason, why we should. You have the Prime | :22:08. | :22:22. | |
small gesture of support. I think he was absolutely right to say, | :22:23. | :22:38. | |
that there is no exit strategy, there is | :22:39. | :22:54. | |
More than that, he came across as wishy`washy with no | :22:55. | :23:11. | |
opposite. He comes across as a very intelligent | :23:12. | :23:23. | |
would have been a bad mistake. But a leader of a | :23:24. | :23:34. | |
supporting in Syria? We had no idea. | :23:35. | :23:46. | |
are on in Syria. At least we have got a site to be on in Iraq. | :23:47. | :23:56. | |
changing power. This is a shrinking power. The US is also a | :23:57. | :24:06. | |
But this country is getting smaller geopolitically, and it | :24:07. | :24:14. | |
Minister has to figure out, what is our foreign policy? So far it seems | :24:15. | :24:22. | |
second strand is to protect UK business | :24:23. | :24:30. | |
has been, essentially, to do what the US does, except that then it | :24:31. | :24:39. | |
now we are doing it. So this country is going | :24:40. | :24:45. | |
thus! We haven't had a foreign policy | :24:46. | :24:52. | |
the war. Oh. In the minute we have got left, the | :24:53. | :24:58. | |
solution to what is fundamentally an Arab problem? | :24:59. | :25:02. | |
be putting more trust in giving more responsibility to the neighbours of | :25:03. | :25:06. | |
Iraq. Including Turkey. Iran is not an Arab state. I am aware of that! | :25:07. | :25:16. | |
Iran has capability, Turkey is part of NATO. The UAE, I was in the UAE | :25:17. | :25:23. | |
last week, and there is a strong determination to prove to the world | :25:24. | :25:26. | |
that IS has nothing to do Islam, it is totally an Islamic, and | :25:27. | :25:32. | |
they want to show that it doesn't represent their culture, their | :25:33. | :25:35. | |
values, let them act... It is for those countries who call | :25:36. | :25:40. | |
themselves the Islamic, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, to start treating | :25:41. | :25:46. | |
that citizens much better, like the women, the Sue `` they have to set | :25:47. | :25:51. | |
an example on how to behave. That is it for Dateline London from next | :25:52. | :25:59. | |
week, you can comment on the programme at Twitter at @gavinesler. | :26:00. | :26:02. | |
Thank you for watching and goodbye. Much of September has been | :26:03. | :26:36. | |
relatively dry and warm, and that is the way we're going | :26:37. | :26:41. |