Tom Richmond: Diplomatic disaster that should have persuaded Cameron to fall on sword

As Cameron tried, and failed, to present his case to Parliament last Thursday, a supposed “joke” was being circulated amongst the political elite which read “Tony Blair says Syria can launch chemical weapons at the UK in 45 minutes”. Hardly laughing material, it only hardened the resolve of Tory rebels and Labour opponents of war.

Yet it is naive just to blame Blair’s legacy – and wobbly Ed Miliband’s U-turn – for Cameron becoming the first PM to lose a parliamentary vote on military intervention since 1782 when MPs voted against further conflict in America during the War of Independence.

British voters, patriotic supporters of the Armed Forces, are heartily sickened of the “shoot first and think about the consequences later” foreign policy doctrine, an approach which left so many soldiers paying with their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they now only expect troops to be deployed sparingly and with purpose.

Even America’s arch-hawk John McCain, the defeated 2008 presidential candidate, now says that the Obama war strategy, backed by Cameron until five days ago, lacks clarity.

It is why the game was up for Cameron in the Commons when he responded so lamely to this simple question by former actress and Labour MP Glenda Jackson: “What has convinced him that an action by the international community would cease the use of chemical weapons within Syria, a country where the combatants have accepted 100,000 dead, millions of refugees and the continuing action that is totally destroying that country?”

It was the question being asked around the country and the PM had simply not done his groundwork. Momentarily, he looked speechless. You could feel the life being sucked out of the PM’s authority when he stood up and replied: “As I have just said, in the end there is no 100 per cent certainty about who is responsible; you have to make a judgment.”

MPs did just that – and made a judgment which left the Prime Minister politically wounded because of his failure to grasp his brief, learn the haunting lessons of recent military history and get to grips with the seriousness of the situation after his mistaken suggestion that the Syrian rebels should be armed.

I’m surprised that it has not become a resignation question for the Tory leader, or Foreign Secretary William Hague. Many have lost their jobs over matters that were far less serious – or profound – in comparison to this diplomatic disaster. Perhaps it shows the extent to which the notion of ministerial responsibility has been sullied since Lord Carrington quit over the Falklands invasion, and the late Robin Cook’s principled resignation over Iraq.

In many respects, I wish Parliament would show its independence, and ask such probing questions, far more frequently – whether it be in the field of foreign affairs or domestic politics. The governance of this country would improve as a consequence if MPs became more independent-minded following this liberating experience.

That said, parliamentary protocol is no consolation to those Syrian innocents being suffocated and burned to death by sarin gas – the assertion of US Secretary of State John Kerry – while Miliband tries to play politics by taking the credit for the Government’s defeat.

Contrast his antics with his colleague Meg Munn, the Sheffield Heeley MP, who told MPs: “To those who are not persuaded by the need to relieve the humanitarian crisis and who say ‘intervention has nothing to do with us; it will play into the hands of al-Qaida’, I say that the reverse is true. We can and must intervene.

“There are clearly risks in not taking action; for more than two years we have not taken action. We should have been having this debate two years ago. We should have been doing something two years ago. Our delay has led to there being no good options.”

As such, David Cameron deserves some praise for having the political courage to recall Parliament and put British intervention in a Syria to a vote while Miliband must question whether it was morally right to help defeat the Government when nerve gas is dropped on children. To their credit, the Lib Dems, and Paddy Ashdown in particular, did show a willingness to accept military action after their principled and steadfast opposition to the Iraq invasion.

However, it does not answer this question: what happens next?

I admit to having been lukewarm to the concept of intervention before seeing the harrowing BBC footage of the apparent aftermath of a napalm-like substance being dropped on a school in the rebel-held north as MPs went through the division lobbies. How can we look these innocents in the eye and say “sorry, you’re on your own”?

And then I ask this: how can the targeting of military sites by cruise missiles prove effective unless such strikes are backed up by sufficient “boots on the ground”?

Perhaps this is the most important lesson of all. The policy of liberal intervention masked the decline of international diplomacy, and the Syria impasse means new ways will have to be sought to empower ineffective bodies like the United Nations.

Too many responses in recent years have been of the knee-jerk kind, hence why little credence was given to Tony Blair’s stance at the weekend. “Intervention can be uncertain, expensive and bloody,” he said. “But history has taught us that inaction can merely postpone the reckoning. We haven’t paid the bill for Syria yet. But we will.” At least he is consistent.

Yet this remark is symptomatic of a generation of leaders who seem incapable of keeping their options open – Mayor of London Boris Johnson now advocates a second Commons vote in the hope of getting the “right” result – and reinvigorating the neglected concept of diplomacy. Britain sitting idly by is just as hopeless as committing to military action.

Tragically, this change of mindset will be too late for Syria but someone, somewhere has to begin longer-term dialogue to prevent the whole Middle East going up in flames.

As the aforementioned Meg Munn said, the suffering in Syria is not new. The real shame is that any response is probably too late because of the two years of inertia and inaction which preceded the tumult of the past week.

To me, this failure of diplomacy and dialogue is a war crime in its own right which the whole civilised world now has to carry on its conscience. As the politicians pay the price for their inadequacies, the slaughter of the innocents continues and all we can offer, after a disastrous 
decade of military intervention, is more bombs. It’s truly heartbreaking.