:00:28. > :00:33.Hello and welcome to Dateline London, Britain Bonds Islamic State
:00:34. > :00:38.targets in Syria, what difference would it make militarily and in
:00:39. > :00:43.terms of security? Outguess today Art Ian Birrell of the Mail on
:00:44. > :00:47.Sunday, Nesrine Malik is a Sudanese writer and broadcaster, Janet Daley
:00:48. > :00:52.who is a writer and Jeffrey Kaufman. The British Parliament's decision to
:00:53. > :00:57.overwhelming endorse the bombing of Islamic State or Daesh in Syria,
:00:58. > :01:02.comes as the German parliament comes to agree to help non-lethal
:01:03. > :01:05.assistance, and America, is considering whether the mass
:01:06. > :01:09.shooting in America is linked to Islamic terrorism. Does British
:01:10. > :01:15.involvement make any difference militarily or diplomatically? First
:01:16. > :01:20.of all, Janet, is it a big deal? It is a big deal, militarily, there was
:01:21. > :01:25.a complete logical breakdown in the fact that we were bombing in Iraq
:01:26. > :01:31.but not in Syria, even though, the border between Iraq and Syria does
:01:32. > :01:36.not exist any longer, and it would have been shameful, given that this
:01:37. > :01:40.is an unprecedented situation, of course it is unpredictable as
:01:41. > :01:45.everybody says. Of course it is chaotic as everybody says, of course
:01:46. > :01:51.it is a shambles but this is an unprecedented situation, this is a
:01:52. > :01:54.death cult that is threatening not just innocent life as we have seen
:01:55. > :01:59.repeatedly in Europe. But, the liberal democratic values, the human
:02:00. > :02:02.values that the whole of our supposed Western alliance is
:02:03. > :02:07.supposed to stand for and even in the East. There is no more, possible
:02:08. > :02:17.plausible moral argument for standing on the sideline in this
:02:18. > :02:21.fight. This is a malignant form of nihilistic love of death, this isn't
:02:22. > :02:26.even a negotiable Army given any more. This is not a recognisable
:02:27. > :02:31.war, that is true because it has broken all of the rules of war. What
:02:32. > :02:35.is it that they are to minding that we could concede? Of course the
:02:36. > :02:39.reaction will be incoherent and shambolic, recalls this is an
:02:40. > :02:43.incoherent phenomenon. But it would still be morally unacceptable to
:02:44. > :02:50.stand on the sidelines, particularly when close allies of ours have just
:02:51. > :02:54.been under attack. Nesrine? We have been on the sidelines for a very
:02:55. > :02:58.long time, the timing is arbitrary and reflects a need to be see to be
:02:59. > :03:03.doing something, rather than doing something because you think it will
:03:04. > :03:08.be productive. I think that is the fundamental discomfort that I have,
:03:09. > :03:13.with the decision to proceed with bombing because I feel that, it kind
:03:14. > :03:18.of harks back to the response to 9-11 which as people say, we don't
:03:19. > :03:22.actually, we can't actually pinpoint where all of this terrorism is
:03:23. > :03:26.coming from but we can be seen to be doing something about it. If it
:03:27. > :03:30.means that we have to bomb certain targets indiscriminately or mean
:03:31. > :03:33.that they are civilian casualties, that is less important than what it
:03:34. > :03:42.says about Britain's standing in the world and I find that deeply morally
:03:43. > :03:49.objectionable, that people's rhetoric, particularly Hilary
:03:50. > :03:53.Benn's message of what we are sending. It doesn't really matter if
:03:54. > :03:57.it cost innocent lives, that is not the issue. This is not an issue of
:03:58. > :04:03.the perception of yourself. This is not narcissism. It is parochial
:04:04. > :04:08.narcissism. This is the opposite parochial, this is an international
:04:09. > :04:10.response to an international threat of unprecedented proportions. This
:04:11. > :04:15.is beyond anything that we understood in the Cold War, it is
:04:16. > :04:19.not an argument about how men should live, it is not a post in light and
:04:20. > :04:25.disagreement about critical philosophies, this is just nihilism
:04:26. > :04:29.and murderous merciless cult. I don't think anybody is going to sit
:04:30. > :04:35.around and defend Isis, I lost somebody who I knew in Paris. It is
:04:36. > :04:39.about how we defeat them and the best way to do so. The reality is
:04:40. > :04:44.that British bombing is going to do very little difference, we sent for
:04:45. > :04:49.bombs to bomb an airfield, when America sent 4000 strike missions.
:04:50. > :04:52.There are no forces on the ground, there aren't any good guys, we don't
:04:53. > :04:57.know who we are working with. All we will do is prop up a sad, we were
:04:58. > :05:05.being told that he was a danger to us. Assad is the root cause of all
:05:06. > :05:09.problems. In that country. We should not get away from that. What we
:05:10. > :05:14.should do, we are aiding Assad, who was our turn me two years ago, and
:05:15. > :05:18.Putin who I was told was the biggest threat to us in Europe, and I
:05:19. > :05:22.believe it. And we're not doing anything to come the problem of
:05:23. > :05:27.Islamic Jihad is on, that is not just in Syria and Iraq, we have seen
:05:28. > :05:30.it in Mali and Somalia and nine Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The idea
:05:31. > :05:36.that if you British bombs are going to solve this problem. I agree
:05:37. > :05:40.fundamentally with what you are saying, this is a death cult and we
:05:41. > :05:43.cannot ignore it, but I would question whether if you British jets
:05:44. > :05:48.are going to make a difference and we know that they are not. In fact,
:05:49. > :05:51.the paradox that we see right now in the Western world, is that we want
:05:52. > :05:57.to be involved but we don't actually want to have two touch anything, so
:05:58. > :06:02.aerial bombing is a sanitised way, holding dating that ultimately we
:06:03. > :06:06.know is not going to be effective. So you want ground forces? So the
:06:07. > :06:13.reality is it will likely take boots on the ground to defeat these evil
:06:14. > :06:19.people. Iraq gave birth to Isis, let us not forget that. This is toppling
:06:20. > :06:25.a regime. Neutralising these guys is not going to be done... But that
:06:26. > :06:30.will not be neutralising it, pouring oil on the fire. That is true, we
:06:31. > :06:36.have a problem which is this generation of young Sunni is is
:06:37. > :06:39.alienating in Iraq and Syria, they had Shi'ite governments, there is no
:06:40. > :06:44.sense of part of a political discourse and there has to be a way
:06:45. > :06:50.to bring them into the discussion. These guys are not going to enter
:06:51. > :06:53.political discussion. But that is the long-term. I want to make a
:06:54. > :06:57.point about your argument about Assad. I agree with you with Assad
:06:58. > :07:03.and I was in favour of the original vote for bombing, but if Britain
:07:04. > :07:09.pulls out, if it makes it clear that it is, it has no intention of
:07:10. > :07:14.entering this fray, we will not bolster... One of the reasons that
:07:15. > :07:19.Obama decided not to bomb Assad is because of the vote in the British
:07:20. > :07:24.Parliament, it increased his tendency to eye to nation is. If
:07:25. > :07:29.if you allow Putin to run the show and get Europe and America out of
:07:30. > :07:33.the game, Assad will be there permanently as a client state, and
:07:34. > :07:38.assuming there is a post Isis world and in the Middle East it will be
:07:39. > :07:43.run by the Russians, with people like Assad. This is a red herring,
:07:44. > :07:47.nobody in the West who has voted for bombing Syria, cares about either of
:07:48. > :07:52.these disenfranchised people joining Isis or cares about Assad's
:07:53. > :07:57.longevity. The only thing that made people scrambled to action was
:07:58. > :08:03.terrorist attacks in Europe, in Paris, and now in the United States.
:08:04. > :08:09.I think, that is fundamentally, the Matic inconsistent. This is why I
:08:10. > :08:13.find the rhetoric around the death cult aspect of it really
:08:14. > :08:18.disingenuous, nobody cared about the Muslims that were being killed,
:08:19. > :08:24.beheaded, all of the Muslim concubines being raped. Nobody cared
:08:25. > :08:28.about that until it became a convenient vehicle, for posturing in
:08:29. > :08:31.the British Parliament. I think you are confusing general public opinion
:08:32. > :08:36.with political opinion, I happen to know that there are an awful lot of
:08:37. > :08:40.MPs who had particular passion and concerns about that region. Why
:08:41. > :08:47.didn't they vote for bombing one year ago? Some of them did. Why did
:08:48. > :08:51.they not pass it? Because Ed Miliband pulls the plug, Cameron
:08:52. > :08:55.thought he had a deal with Ed Miliband's labour to vote in favour
:08:56. > :09:00.of the bombing and he pulls the carpet. Can we bring some of these
:09:01. > :09:04.threads together, is everybody around the table agreed about the
:09:05. > :09:10.end is, that Isis somehow must be defeated? Do you agree? Absolutely.
:09:11. > :09:15.It has two B but Isis is just one part of a global confrontation. The
:09:16. > :09:19.idea that it is perpetuated by people arguing for if you British
:09:20. > :09:23.bombs to drop in Syria is that Isis is defeated and the problem is
:09:24. > :09:26.solved. It isn't, this is about local politics, religious politics,
:09:27. > :09:35.sectarianism, corruption, repression. Intervention can make it
:09:36. > :09:39.worse, look at what has happened in Mali and Iraq and even in Syria.
:09:40. > :09:44.Look at Libya, intervention is not the solution stop blue just one
:09:45. > :09:47.other thought, is everybody also agreed, none of you have made the
:09:48. > :09:52.argument that bombing makes Britain more of a target, does
:09:53. > :10:01.everybody agree that Britain is already a target? Yes yes yes.
:10:02. > :10:05.Surely you are not suggesting that nothing should be done? Something
:10:06. > :10:10.has to be done. The problem is that now it is so out of control that
:10:11. > :10:14.something surgical is required, and bombing is the first step. But it
:10:15. > :10:18.comes with no guaranteed outcome. I completely agree with you, if you
:10:19. > :10:22.wipe out Isis, even if you took troops in, if you put 20,000 troops
:10:23. > :10:27.in tomorrow and you neutralised their command centres and killed
:10:28. > :10:34.their leaders, something else will crop up in that void. Is do
:10:35. > :10:41.something that has been proven in the recent past... Because we did
:10:42. > :10:50.not stay, we did not finish the job. Debt has not forget, that Isis, the
:10:51. > :10:59.four members of the military Council of Isis were former Baathists. It is
:11:00. > :11:03.about Sunni-sheer sectarianism. America is so averse to being
:11:04. > :11:07.colonial, that it would not stay and finish the job, having beheaded the
:11:08. > :11:13.regime, it wouldn't stay on and do what needed to be done. It will take
:11:14. > :11:16.a long, long time to develop stability in this region, and
:11:17. > :11:23.somebody is going to have two stick it, it is not a question of military
:11:24. > :11:31.intervention. This time it is going to get worse? So what, so we should
:11:32. > :11:37.do nothing? I think there is a difference between Iraq and Syria.
:11:38. > :11:41.There is a big difference because in Iraq, varies the Kurdish group, who
:11:42. > :11:44.are forces that we should be backing and they are forces that will bring
:11:45. > :11:54.a degree of sanity to the situation there. Not in the view of Turkey I
:11:55. > :11:58.have two says. In Syria there is nobody like that, what can be done,
:11:59. > :12:02.we can have logic in our politics where we stop backing the people who
:12:03. > :12:06.are funding terrorism like Saudi Arabia. We can have logic in our
:12:07. > :12:11.foreign policy where we stopped backing repressive regime so that we
:12:12. > :12:14.have logic in the domestic policy that we stop permitting corruption.
:12:15. > :12:19.The cause of what happened in Syria was partly the grotesque corruption
:12:20. > :12:24.of the Syria regime who all had big links to London. Let us take the
:12:25. > :12:28.plank out of our own high. Yes I agree, framing the question, if
:12:29. > :12:32.you're not going to do this do you want to do nothing is problematic.
:12:33. > :12:37.It is difficult to answer without sounding like a mumbling delivered
:12:38. > :12:42.liberal, saying maybe we shouldn't do this. Actually, it is a perfectly
:12:43. > :12:47.legitimate thing to do nothing in the immediate term. If there is
:12:48. > :12:52.nothing precise and affected to do. I completely agree with Ian, these
:12:53. > :12:54.are the legacies of entrenched long-term political decisions that
:12:55. > :12:58.had been made by successive governments in the West and in the
:12:59. > :13:03.Arab world, and it is not sexy and it doesn't wind you any plaudits, to
:13:04. > :13:12.stand up in Parliament and sailor does not bombing Syria but that does
:13:13. > :13:16.have a coherent plan. If you are saying, what can we do other than
:13:17. > :13:22.bomb? The answer is that there are several things that can be done that
:13:23. > :13:27.require commitment, cross-party, cross government over the years in
:13:28. > :13:31.gauge and with the Arab world in a way, that means that dictators are
:13:32. > :13:35.propped up, that Muslim governments like Saudi Arabia and other similar
:13:36. > :13:39.ones are not allowed to fund gratuitously and arbitrarily Muslim
:13:40. > :13:45.opposition in other countries. It is a failure of a coherent in gauge
:13:46. > :13:48.went in the region. Having said that, it doesn't mean it is a
:13:49. > :13:51.British or a western problem but it does mean if you are asking me what
:13:52. > :13:56.else can be done, there are other things that can be done but they are
:13:57. > :14:02.not things that you can rouse people up about. It is a British and
:14:03. > :14:06.Western problem if protecting ourselves against the consequences
:14:07. > :14:13.of this gratuitous and anarchic violence is not only going to
:14:14. > :14:18.destroy life and destroy values. We are effectively going to have two...
:14:19. > :14:24.I have mused for you, terrorism existed before Isis and will exists
:14:25. > :14:33.afterwards. There were more terrorist in Europe than there had
:14:34. > :14:39.been since 9/11. Hold on. Hold on. Hold our next mission at I said it
:14:40. > :14:46.is not just a threat to life which is on a pretty small-scale. It is
:14:47. > :14:49.the threat to the values of freedom and liberty, and the kind of
:14:50. > :14:54.security measures that are going to be needed to protect, because all
:14:55. > :14:58.governments have a moral sponsor ability to protect the security of
:14:59. > :15:01.their citizens especially in West and Chris Eves. The kind security
:15:02. > :15:05.measures that are going to have two be brought in are going to undermine
:15:06. > :15:11.the freedom and liberal democracy that we accept as part of our
:15:12. > :15:20.liberal culture. Bombing because you don't want to telephone tapped? --
:15:21. > :15:26.your telephone tapped. Compare to what we had in the 1970s,
:15:27. > :15:29.Baader-Meinhof, the IRA, every single one of them wanted something
:15:30. > :15:34.on this planet that you could negotiate with. Either a change of a
:15:35. > :15:38.governmental system or a bit of land. Is there anything that can be
:15:39. > :15:43.negotiated with the people of Isis? We need to go back one step because
:15:44. > :15:49.it is not about Isis beating demands, it is about why does Isis
:15:50. > :15:53.exist in the first place? You do realise that there are immediate
:15:54. > :16:00.demands, which is democracy, not propping up quite as a military
:16:01. > :16:05.dictatorships, but if you listen to what might she said, we need to go
:16:06. > :16:08.back one step and asked why Isis exists and why ceramic terrorism has
:16:09. > :16:13.existed in the Islamic world since the 60s and 70s. There is a whole
:16:14. > :16:17.political and historical context, and if you take a very simple not
:16:18. > :16:24.particularly intellectual look at the Arab world in the last 50 years,
:16:25. > :16:30.you will see that from Omar unto the Maghreb, the entire region has been
:16:31. > :16:34.led by undemocratic, princelings. You cannot expect that to happen
:16:35. > :16:38.backed by Western governments who have their own interests taken care
:16:39. > :16:44.of, you cannot expect that to happen for 50 or 60 years, and not have
:16:45. > :16:50.disenfranchised people stop and I think we agree but the problem with
:16:51. > :16:53.your argument, and you bring the argument into reality. If you look
:16:54. > :16:59.at Sadam and the consequences ten or 15 years later, is that we can't
:17:00. > :17:03.simply go in and say we are going to make things better. There is no
:17:04. > :17:06.quick or even long-term fix. That is the problem. You can't go in and do
:17:07. > :17:14.regime change, George Bush effectively taught us that and
:17:15. > :17:19.Tony Blair thank you. But you could also cannot sit back, you cannot
:17:20. > :17:24.respond to Bataclan by doing nothing. Saying it is a long-term
:17:25. > :17:30.study and we should report with an international commission. But there
:17:31. > :17:37.are things that you can do on the ground, Yiu Kam Shing Iraq some of
:17:38. > :17:41.the tribal groups, -- you can separate some of the tribal groups.
:17:42. > :17:48.Some of them support Isis for short-term political reasons, you
:17:49. > :17:54.can get Isis away from oil, a lot of people, are fleeing Isis. It may
:17:55. > :17:57.well collapse under its own misery. The West always thinks that the
:17:58. > :18:03.solution is to go in and stir things up and make matters worse. There is
:18:04. > :18:07.politics and diplomacy that can be done and that does go back to what
:18:08. > :18:12.you are talking about with the IRA, ultimately there was a political
:18:13. > :18:15.solution. Like it or not, it is not about giving ground to the fanatics,
:18:16. > :18:20.it is about solving some of the bitter good problems that attracted
:18:21. > :18:27.millions of people to their side no matter how much people like them. --
:18:28. > :18:32.some of the political problems. But you are implying that there is a
:18:33. > :18:38.rational argument that we can have, this is absurd, this is way beyond
:18:39. > :18:45.that. You are in Paris and Wonderland, people say, you love
:18:46. > :18:51.life, we love death. You also criticised the West for
:18:52. > :18:57.supporting these tinpot dictators, which you are right for but then you
:18:58. > :19:06.criticised them for displacing them. Which? I am criticising the view
:19:07. > :19:12.that bombing Isis is going to solve anything, I did not say anything,
:19:13. > :19:17.about regime change. You did. The problem is, I agree with you, that
:19:18. > :19:24.their generational issues that have led to this and the propping up, of
:19:25. > :19:33.the 20th century dictators in this region, it has led to this anger and
:19:34. > :19:36.frustration. And 21st-century too. Part of what we are seeing is the
:19:37. > :19:41.direct result of the toppling of Saddam Hussein, when Paul Bremer
:19:42. > :19:46.issued his decree number one getting rid of the Baathist party and agree
:19:47. > :19:50.number two, disbanding the Iraqi army.
:19:51. > :19:57.He sowed the seeds. All of those disenfranchised Sunni 's in Iraq,
:19:58. > :19:59.felt that they had no way to actually press the case. That was
:20:00. > :20:08.the case of removing a tyrant, so you are
:20:09. > :20:14.wrong if you remove a tyrant and you are wrong if you keep a tyrant. I
:20:15. > :20:18.think one thing where you are right is that we will be talking about
:20:19. > :20:24.this for a long time, there is no quick fix. Isn't this a problem,
:20:25. > :20:28.that it is being sold to the problem that this is a quick fix, that we
:20:29. > :20:37.will white out Isis and it will all be fixed. If you tell Francois
:20:38. > :20:48.Hollande that he needs not to do anything, he has two. It is about
:20:49. > :20:54.not pouring oil on the fire. Bombing the oilfields is very specific and
:20:55. > :20:58.meaningful. Our discussion unfortunately cannot go on for an
:20:59. > :21:03.entire generation, we have got five more minutes. What impact is is
:21:04. > :21:09.having on British domestic politics if any? We are seeing, the Labour
:21:10. > :21:13.Party, some MPs saying that they are being hectored by this, there is
:21:14. > :21:18.some nasty politics going on. The leadership of the Labour Party is
:21:19. > :21:22.saying there is no place for this. For David Cameron it is very
:21:23. > :21:25.important, I think the authority of the Prime Minister was weakened in
:21:26. > :21:30.2013, not backing the Prime Minister and making him look foolish on the
:21:31. > :21:33.world stage. So it has been very important for the authority of the
:21:34. > :21:40.British Prime Minister, also only seven Tory MPs did not back him, and
:21:41. > :21:43.it has reasserted his hold on his new look and image, Conservative
:21:44. > :21:47.Party. For the Tories it has been very good. For labour it has been
:21:48. > :21:50.disastrous because it has brought to a head, the craziness of the
:21:51. > :21:56.division, where you have got a leader who is backed by the new
:21:57. > :21:59.membership, quite strongly and politicians in parliament who really
:22:00. > :22:04.don't like him and don't like what he's doing. And wanting to be more
:22:05. > :22:10.in tune with public. It is a huge fissure and it has been brought into
:22:11. > :22:16.the public eye and it needs to be reconciled, whether to be throwing
:22:17. > :22:21.out the leader or the MPs. Edition artist is, it is not always about us
:22:22. > :22:26.but it is sometimes about us? What if it is a vote in the British
:22:27. > :22:30.Parliament, it is about you, I can't take that away from you. But it is
:22:31. > :22:36.interesting to see, self-involved, what does it say about us. But very
:22:37. > :22:40.little about what does this actually mean, hearing from Syrians and
:22:41. > :22:46.Middle Eastern experts, even the media discourse about it. You have
:22:47. > :22:49.question Time panels, you have moral maze discussions on BBC Four where
:22:50. > :22:54.you don't hear from anyone from the region, it is about what should we
:22:55. > :23:02.BBC to be doing and what does it say about us and what does it say about
:23:03. > :23:05.the liberal left. I have seen Syrians being interviewed and
:23:06. > :23:11.Iraqis. But in terms of what has been bubbling up in the main screen
:23:12. > :23:14.discussion, what people had been used for evidence. What politicians
:23:15. > :23:19.have viewed as evidence, has not been native and indigenous. We heard
:23:20. > :23:26.a lot from amateur lobby in the lead up to the Iraq war and it was not
:23:27. > :23:29.entirely helpful, to the administration. That does not mean
:23:30. > :23:35.that we throw out the baby with the bath water. The constituents, that
:23:36. > :23:41.has to be the case, it is the only thing over which we have any
:23:42. > :23:46.accountability. This is a very important point, sorry to cut you
:23:47. > :23:51.off. Because of short-term democratic cycles, I'm not saying
:23:52. > :24:02.that we should have dictatorships, these decisions are made, with
:24:03. > :24:06.short-term deadlines. Can I finish. When democratic politics is about
:24:07. > :24:12.being accountable to the population, and the relationship and the
:24:13. > :24:16.population, I am sorry, you don't seem to understand the principle,
:24:17. > :24:19.democracy is about explaining to the nation and the nation responding to
:24:20. > :24:22.your explanation of why you are doing what you are doing. There is
:24:23. > :24:29.nothing wrong with being assessed with that, that is the system. We
:24:30. > :24:34.have a minute left. My own country, Canada, the new Prime Minister is
:24:35. > :24:39.pulling the teams from the bombing campaign. That is what he ran on,
:24:40. > :24:43.but he says since Paris, Bataclan, he will be increasing the training
:24:44. > :24:47.forces. But different currents in different countries. I think what is
:24:48. > :24:53.happening here is that Cameron is asserting himself on the foreign
:24:54. > :24:59.stage and saying we are a player. On that note of agreement, do we agree
:25:00. > :25:03.with that? That is it for Dateline London, you can comment on the
:25:04. > :25:04.programme on Twitter, we are back next week at the same time, thanks
:25:05. > :25:10.for watching and goodbye.