:00:28. > :00:29.Hello and welcome to Dateline London.
:00:30. > :00:31.Britain's decision on whether to bomb in Syria, after Turkey
:00:32. > :00:34.is Britain's Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn,
:00:35. > :00:36.capable of leading his own Labour Party in parliament?
:00:37. > :00:43.TaMichael Goldfarb of Politico Europe, Stephanie Baker of Bloomberg
:00:44. > :00:46.News, Amir Taheri, who is an Iranian writer, and
:00:47. > :00:53.There is no more difficult or important decision for a politician
:00:54. > :00:57.than that which puts human lives in danger by going to war.
:00:58. > :01:01.David Cameron tried in 2013 to encourage British Members
:01:02. > :01:04.of Parliament to vote to bomb Syria, meaning the forces of
:01:05. > :01:09.Now he is trying to bomb Syria again, but this time the target is
:01:10. > :01:19.What would success look like in this enterprise?
:01:20. > :01:26.In the case for British military intervention?
:01:27. > :01:31.No, because he did not answer one of the questions that you just posed.
:01:32. > :01:36.He did not really clarify what happens after the bombing. He is in
:01:37. > :01:43.the position where he accepts that the bombing himself will not remove
:01:44. > :01:48.Isis, whatever remove precisely means, that growing troops will be
:01:49. > :01:56.involved, and he leaps from what he regards as the legitimate case for
:01:57. > :02:01.bombing to the installation of a moderate Syrian government who would
:02:02. > :02:06.provide the boots on the ground. The explanation of how we get from a to
:02:07. > :02:10.B is more vague than anything Tony Blair said in advance of the war in
:02:11. > :02:17.Iraq. It makes his objective seem clear compared to this. You point to
:02:18. > :02:22.the other incoherent element of all this, to three years ago he wanted
:02:23. > :02:28.to bomb targets associated with President Assad. Now he wants to
:02:29. > :02:34.bomb one of Assad's internal enemies in presumably short-term alliance
:02:35. > :02:40.with Britain and Assad, before trying to remove Assad. The whole
:02:41. > :02:43.thing is a complete mess. Could you see that bombing Islamic State is
:02:44. > :02:49.not the same as intervening in Libya or Iraq which was a decapitation
:02:50. > :02:55.strategy to change the regime. These are bad people who do bad things,
:02:56. > :03:00.and they are a threat to us. Yes, who would disagree with that? Or
:03:01. > :03:06.that Saddam was a deeply awful tyrant in Iraq? But that is the easy
:03:07. > :03:12.bit, agreeing on that. How you deal with them is nightmarishly
:03:13. > :03:17.complicated. All we can say so far is the evidence of these Western
:03:18. > :03:24.interventions of various forms, including the latest bombing, the
:03:25. > :03:30.situation in the region worsens, the global threat seems to worsen. You
:03:31. > :03:36.will ask what we should be doing, and, I haven't got an answer. The
:03:37. > :03:38.evidence suggests that what is happening is not working and that
:03:39. > :03:45.this bombing strategy has not been thought through beyond France seem
:03:46. > :03:51.to Britain, join in, and David Cameron saying, I think we should.
:03:52. > :03:59.The first time, a quick question, how big a force is he talking
:04:00. > :04:03.about? Very small. We could save police action against a group of
:04:04. > :04:07.criminal thugs rather than war. One of the things, a quick aside, there
:04:08. > :04:14.is this talk of war like when we went into Iraq with divisions, this
:04:15. > :04:23.is not what we're talking about. Plus the UK is already involved in
:04:24. > :04:29.aiding in Iraq. I was in Kurdish Iraq in September and spoke to a
:04:30. > :04:33.translator on the front line. He is a kid who lives in Middlesbrough but
:04:34. > :04:38.speaks Kurdish as well as English so he was working. It is not the same
:04:39. > :04:48.thing. The big problem, nobody has figured out how to cut this, there
:04:49. > :04:52.is a timeline here. I do not see how advocating coming in on the side of
:04:53. > :05:00.the free Syrian Army three years ago and the bombing now in what seems to
:05:01. > :05:04.be in support of the Assad regime, it does not bother me in particular
:05:05. > :05:10.because you have to realise that the whole country is a complete mess,
:05:11. > :05:15.and I think you have to take a series of short-term decisions. The
:05:16. > :05:19.deeper question is, how long do you allow Isis to carry on? And do you
:05:20. > :05:27.need to find a solution to the Assad problem before you get into a heavy
:05:28. > :05:30.military situation? Project loggerheads with our allies in
:05:31. > :05:37.struggle, it would seem, that is the Russians. More importantly, it puts
:05:38. > :05:43.us in conflict with the Turks, because one effective force against
:05:44. > :05:48.Assad, one thing we can say, if you press back on Isis, whatever you
:05:49. > :05:54.want to call them, on the ground, they tend to give ground because
:05:55. > :05:58.they are just not in a position. The Kurds have been able to seize back
:05:59. > :06:03.territory. The problem is that the Turks do not wonder that, and they
:06:04. > :06:08.do not want that in Iraqi Kurdistan hi there, so it is not so much the
:06:09. > :06:14.Russians, it is the Turks, we need to keep them on side because week to
:06:15. > :06:16.fly from their. Stephanie? I struggle with this because any
:06:17. > :06:19.solution to the Syrian water will be solution to the Syrian water will be
:06:20. > :06:23.messy and protracted and will take time. I am not satisfied that those
:06:24. > :06:29.who are against Syrian air strikes have a coherent idea of how to
:06:30. > :06:34.address Daesh, Isis, in Syria anyway. You stand back and do
:06:35. > :06:40.nothing? Seems to be the alternative that Jeremy Corbyn is proposing. We
:06:41. > :06:44.did that two years ago in the wake of these chemical attacks by Assad.
:06:45. > :06:52.There were not air strikes and Isis was allowed to mushroom. In many
:06:53. > :07:00.ways this reminds me of the Bosnian war. Another war that seemed
:07:01. > :07:05.intractable, that had divisions on the ground along religious and
:07:06. > :07:13.ethnic lines, and Syria is similar in that on the ground it is a defect
:07:14. > :07:18.or partition is operating, -- eight defect or partition is operating,
:07:19. > :07:28.and air strikes could degrade Isis to the point where an TIS Sunni
:07:29. > :07:37.forces, not moderate forces, but anti-IS forces, could fill that
:07:38. > :07:43.vacuum and group degrade them. Take their revenues from oil internally,
:07:44. > :07:50.because you cannot cut off their finances externally because it is
:07:51. > :07:57.being generated from the territory. Amiel, the role of Iran in this. I
:07:58. > :08:02.want to hear what you think. What is Iran's position about outside forces
:08:03. > :08:11.bombing in their neighbourhood? As long as outside forces are bombing
:08:12. > :08:14.anti-Assad forces, they are happy. Couldn't even brought his own food
:08:15. > :08:26.for fear of being poisoned. A wise precaution. He was repeating
:08:27. > :08:29.Stalin's move when he came in 1943, he did the same because he did not
:08:30. > :08:37.trust the Iranians. But at the moment Britain is hitting the
:08:38. > :08:43.enemies of Mr Assad -- Vladimir Putin is hitting the enemies. Only
:08:44. > :08:47.in theory. He has not done anything against so-called Islamic State or
:08:48. > :08:54.Isis. The problem with war is that war is like love, it is something
:08:55. > :09:02.that if you analyse it too much, too much analysis leads to paralysis.
:09:03. > :09:07.Isis or Islamic State, it does not control all the territory that you
:09:08. > :09:12.see on BBC maps. It is present, but there are 18 other groups with whom
:09:13. > :09:19.Isis trades. There is a fantastic book just came out detailing this,
:09:20. > :09:24.written by a Syrian who went there for a year and identified this, and
:09:25. > :09:29.these enemies want to be on the side of the winner. If Islamic State is
:09:30. > :09:32.the winner, they are with them, if Islamic State is the loser, they
:09:33. > :09:39.will go and kill Islamic State people. It is not the question of
:09:40. > :09:46.what is happening tomorrow I'm a do you have a plan, is bombing going to
:09:47. > :09:54.work? Bombing alone does work, it worked in Kosovo. It worked by
:09:55. > :10:02.persuading the Serbs, it worked in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Military works.
:10:03. > :10:08.The beauty of war is simplicity, whether you like it or not. If
:10:09. > :10:16.territory, they would lose whatever territory, they would lose whatever
:10:17. > :10:19.power they have? At the moment I follow their campaign on the
:10:20. > :10:26.Internet, I read their books, and I'm reading five of their books
:10:27. > :10:30.right now, I reviewed one, it is called The Management Of The
:10:31. > :10:38.Wilderness hummer the plan is to turn the whole of the world into the
:10:39. > :10:43.wilderness so that nobody is safe. What happens when the status quo
:10:44. > :10:48.becomes intolerable, you have to go and change that thing. The same
:10:49. > :10:56.thing happened with Thomas Jefferson and the Pirates in North Africa.
:10:57. > :11:00.They started by writing to the Pirates, let's reform Islam, you are
:11:01. > :11:05.believers, they sent them a copy of the courant as well, and it paid
:11:06. > :11:11.tribute to them as well. But stop attacking our ships, they didn't.
:11:12. > :11:18.Survey said a military expedition, they destroyed the Pirates, never
:11:19. > :11:22.heard from them again. That is the best case I have heard for bombing.
:11:23. > :11:27.Partly you make the case by saying, let's not ask any of the questions
:11:28. > :11:35.about tomorrow. But can I ask one question? Let's not question the
:11:36. > :11:41.whole thing to death. Dinner party chat and so on. Before doing this
:11:42. > :11:45.you have got to address some of the questions, and one of the things is
:11:46. > :11:52.that we have been told that this will only be one with ground
:11:53. > :11:57.troops. Who will coordinate that? You mentioned the 50 odd groups who
:11:58. > :12:11.might form some coordinated operation. Who will lead that? Sorry
:12:12. > :12:18.to ask the question, but... I hope it is a rhetorical question. There
:12:19. > :12:25.is no answer. Is a metrical warfare, everything is asymmetrical including
:12:26. > :12:29.the logic of the warfare. You could in theory do what the US did with
:12:30. > :12:35.Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is the immediate predecessor of that, you
:12:36. > :12:40.can bribe local chieftains and then send in ground forces, you can take
:12:41. > :12:47.out the leader, and then five years later you have got Daesh. You cannot
:12:48. > :12:55.eliminate this incredible cancer which has located itself in the body
:12:56. > :13:01.politic of Islam. Why even define victory in those terms? And in terms
:13:02. > :13:05.of leadership, the biggest problem, this is nothing to do with Daesh,
:13:06. > :13:15.what we used to call the West is any position at the moment of incredibly
:13:16. > :13:19.weak leadership. Anti-banner people who are intelligent will say it is
:13:20. > :13:28.because he is weak and he dithers -- bomber. -- bomber. It has a lot of
:13:29. > :13:35.power, the US, but internally it is written. The EU is riven to the
:13:36. > :13:39.caller with economic issues. There cannot be leadership. And that has
:13:40. > :13:42.nothing to do with Daesh, that is the state we are in. The lack of
:13:43. > :13:47.leadership has contributed to this leadership has contributed to this
:13:48. > :13:50.problem. Barack Obama was mandated to remove us from these costly wars,
:13:51. > :13:57.and he has a hands-off approach, and that will not change. Leadership
:13:58. > :14:11.requires following, and people are not keen to follow interwar. We have
:14:12. > :14:17.entered a met -- MAs into which we cannot except. We have to reform
:14:18. > :14:24.specific and targeted. War is just specific and targeted. War is just
:14:25. > :14:29.aimed at changing a status quo. Changing the status quo means
:14:30. > :14:40.destroying Daesh, it can be done only by bombing. And the perception
:14:41. > :14:44.that these guys are losers, not winners, they sure these beards and
:14:45. > :14:50.the huge out in Western streets, they say we're winning everywhere,
:14:51. > :14:58.America has been fighting us for 18 months, but they do not say that in
:14:59. > :15:02.these 18 months have just bombed them 3750 times according to John
:15:03. > :15:07.Kerry last week in New York, where as in the first day of the war
:15:08. > :15:20.against Saddam they had 13,000 in one day. But... One sentence.
:15:21. > :15:24.Whoever takes up, there is a stat is cool but is intolerable for us, he
:15:25. > :15:30.has to go and change it, by force if necessary. But does nobody ever
:15:31. > :15:33.point out that if the idea of a caliphate were so attractive that
:15:34. > :15:36.would not just be a handful of people entering the caliphate and
:15:37. > :15:44.millions leaving Syria as is happening. People cannot wait to
:15:45. > :15:54.escape from ten mac. -- estate from Daesh. In the past there were just a
:15:55. > :16:02.few demonstrations, the British may be wanted to punish the Ottoman for
:16:03. > :16:08.their pro-German sentiments. You must read this problem not as a
:16:09. > :16:17.cancer, as our friend said, but as diabetes. You cannot cure it. This
:16:18. > :16:22.is why Susan Sontag said you should not use medical metaphors. Jeremy
:16:23. > :16:30.Corbyn's leadership. Read easier going? It is a really interesting
:16:31. > :16:37.moment in the history of the Labour Party, because to say he is
:16:38. > :16:40.culpable, those challenging him is culpable, it is the wrong way of
:16:41. > :16:46.looking at it. He has a fundamental view which he will not change, that
:16:47. > :16:50.this bombing will be a terrible mistake, which is in line with the
:16:51. > :16:54.ridiculous thought for many years. And he has a section of his
:16:55. > :16:57.parliamentary party who are out to remove him and support the bombing.
:16:58. > :17:02.arises in politics for which there arises in politics for which there
:17:03. > :17:07.is no solution. It is a complete nightmare. A lot of people say it is
:17:08. > :17:11.his fault, this is terrible leadership, but I cannot see how
:17:12. > :17:17.brilliant leadership will square the circle that he is opposed to the
:17:18. > :17:22.bombing and has a Shadow Foreign Secretary, a deputy leader who are
:17:23. > :17:26.in favour. It is becoming blurred by the desire of Liberal MPs to get rid
:17:27. > :17:37.of him, and this Syria issue is being used to get rid of them. He is
:17:38. > :17:42.sincere in opposing the bombing, and it is an interesting case of someone
:17:43. > :17:45.who has had the freedom of being on the backbenches to suddenly
:17:46. > :17:51.discovering that leadership makes you less influential in airway than
:17:52. > :17:59.as a weak and hardly non-backbencher because suddenly you are
:18:00. > :18:02.constrained. You cannot speak your mind. It is a nightmare for the
:18:03. > :18:07.Labour Party because there is no obvious solution. What I think is
:18:08. > :18:12.interesting is that even those Labour MPs who agree with him are
:18:13. > :18:14.not happy with his leadership on this issue and the way he has
:18:15. > :18:21.managed things in terms of rushing out this statement, saying he is
:18:22. > :18:27.against the air strikes without consulting or even informing his
:18:28. > :18:32.Shadow Foreign Secretary. That is providing even more momentum for
:18:33. > :18:39.those groups trying to stage a coup against him. Any situation that is
:18:40. > :18:45.without President in British politics, here's a war with his
:18:46. > :18:55.Shadow Cabinet, and vice versa, so in fairness to carbon, he did do
:18:56. > :19:01.that, but half the Shadow Cabinet were briefing about their position
:19:02. > :19:03.even before he had. -- in fairness to Jeremy Corbyn. They are
:19:04. > :19:04.in a way that is not sustainable. It in a way that is not sustainable. It
:19:05. > :19:07.member of an organised political member of an organised political
:19:08. > :19:12.party? And he said, no, I am a Democrat. You could say that about
:19:13. > :19:21.Labour. When a major political party becomes a joke, it is not helpful
:19:22. > :19:25.for their electoral chances. Even in the states, half the country thinks
:19:26. > :19:29.there are public and party is a joke, and the candidate, Donald
:19:30. > :19:36.Trump talks like a right-wing dis- jockey. Republicans will vote
:19:37. > :19:44.Republican. It is not the same with Labour, you have this new membership
:19:45. > :19:50.intake joining last May, and it seems to me that supporters of
:19:51. > :19:54.Jeremy Corbyn in the general membership, he's not playing to
:19:55. > :19:58.them, that is his constituency. The problem is for an opposition party,
:19:59. > :20:04.you have to reach out to others. And his entire career on the backbenches
:20:05. > :20:12.and was free to rebel against the leadership, and that was fine. And
:20:13. > :20:16.in 33 years, in Parliament, I have been here for 30 years, I cannot
:20:17. > :20:20.rumba him successfully persuading large numbers of people who
:20:21. > :20:26.disagreed with him at the start of the debate to his side. And now as
:20:27. > :20:28.leader he has to bring his Shadow Cabinet, and he has none of these
:20:29. > :20:36.necessary negotiating skills to bring people along. This sounds
:20:37. > :20:41.strange to me, you are surprised that Jeremy Corbyn is behaving as
:20:42. > :20:46.Jeremy Corbyn should. Jeremy Corbyn is Jeremy Corbyn. He has sympathies
:20:47. > :20:52.with countries that are against the United States, he has travelled to
:20:53. > :20:55.Iran, he was on the Iranians television for years, he thinks that
:20:56. > :20:59.US imperialism and Western US imperialism and Western
:21:00. > :21:05.imperialism in general has done a lot of harm to the Muslim world and
:21:06. > :21:10.so on, and it is time to do something else. This is how he is.
:21:11. > :21:15.Whether you like it or not, I do not like it personally, but this is his
:21:16. > :21:18.position. Jeremy Corbyn does as he should. If the rest of the Labour
:21:19. > :21:22.Party want to do something else, they should go and do something
:21:23. > :21:24.else, but they should not attack Jeremy Corbyn personally for
:21:25. > :21:30.defending what he has been doing all his life. His position is not the
:21:31. > :21:38.problem, it is the way he has managed the party. Instead of trying
:21:39. > :21:42.to muster support within the parliamentary Labour Party MPs, he
:21:43. > :21:46.has appealed to party members. And there is this fundamental
:21:47. > :21:51.disconnect. That is a revolutionary thing. Lennon says forget about the
:21:52. > :21:57.politburo, go directly to the masses. Years to deliver party
:21:58. > :22:03.members who do not represent the broad electorate. Labour Party
:22:04. > :22:07.members agree with him, and the parliamentary party do not. So not
:22:08. > :22:10.surprisingly, he appeals to the Labour Party membership. It raises
:22:11. > :22:15.all kinds of Shakespearean themes like loyalty, to whom are you
:22:16. > :22:18.rid of him cannot claim at the rid of him cannot claim at the
:22:19. > :22:20.moment they are being loyal to the party membership, as the party
:22:21. > :22:24.membership packs Jeremy Corbyn. Corp membership packs Jeremy Corbyn. Corp
:22:25. > :22:29.and is being loyal to his convictions but in doing so is not
:22:30. > :22:34.fulfilling one of the roles of leadership which is to keep the
:22:35. > :22:38.party together. However, how you keep the party together when it is
:22:39. > :22:43.split on something like Syria, it is impossible. In left-wing radical
:22:44. > :22:46.movements sometimes a leader comes and goes beyond the doctrine,
:22:47. > :22:56.therefore the movement is named after that leader, for example we
:22:57. > :23:03.talk of Leninism, or we talk of Maoism. Here we have Corbynism. And
:23:04. > :23:15.that the that you become a movement that the that you become a movement
:23:16. > :23:21.on its own, and Corbynism will be defeated in the end just as the
:23:22. > :23:27.other ideas were defeated. I wondered about the idea of jihad
:23:28. > :23:30.itself. This may be the dinner party conversation, but what would stop
:23:31. > :23:35.people thinking it is a good idea to go and kill other people in
:23:36. > :23:38.restaurants and so on? What would stop their mindset? I wonder if they
:23:39. > :23:42.are very similar to people who go to family planning clinics in the
:23:43. > :23:46.United States or should people in cinemas in the United States. Is
:23:47. > :23:50.something utterly wrong with these people? If it is easy, everybody
:23:51. > :23:56.for jihad. It is the duty of the for jihad. It is the duty of the
:23:57. > :24:02.Muslim authority to attack the land of the infidel at least once a
:24:03. > :24:06.year. And every caliphs did it until a Byzantine emperor stopped them.
:24:07. > :24:14.For 800 years there was nothing else. If it is easy, everybody is
:24:15. > :24:20.foreign. If it is more difficult, fewer people. But you always have
:24:21. > :24:23.liked the Russian dolls, one within the other, you always have that
:24:24. > :24:28.small final doll who wants to kill you because you are Gavin, not
:24:29. > :24:34.because you have done anything wrong. This guy must be treated, by
:24:35. > :24:41.police work, by military work, by intelligence work. Whatever you
:24:42. > :24:45.like. But if you make all your actions conditional on persuading
:24:46. > :24:54.Batman not to kill you, you do nothing. -- persuading Batman not to
:24:55. > :24:59.kill you. Years ago I made a documentary called British jihad. I
:25:00. > :25:09.spoke to a man who comes from Syria, and this is the funny
:25:10. > :25:19.thing... You can bribe them. That is why he lives in Lebanon. But what is
:25:20. > :25:29.amazing is that the same problems about the same small group, 20 or 30
:25:30. > :25:33.young men and they have all been penetrated, the security services
:25:34. > :25:37.know about them, they morphed into Daesh, some of them run off to
:25:38. > :25:41.Syria, somewhat a caliphate to go and kill in Iraq, whatever. If you
:25:42. > :25:48.went back ten years from that you would find another small group in
:25:49. > :25:52.Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Bosnia said, go away, we do not want to
:25:53. > :25:56.jihad here, we are fighting for our national identity. And ten years
:25:57. > :26:02.back from that in Afghanistan, it is a small group. We sometimes given
:26:03. > :26:05.far too much credit because once every 18 months it can come into the
:26:06. > :26:08.Western do something terrible, and I think we have to be careful not to
:26:09. > :26:09.give them too much That's it for Dateline London for
:26:10. > :26:14.this week - you can comment on the We're back next week
:26:15. > :26:18.at the same time.