We cannot say we abhor the use of weapons against civilians in Aleppo, yet supply such weapons for use against civilians in Yemen
Do we know – or sufficiently value – what the UK gains from its relationship with Saudi Arabia? This is the question posed here recently by Professor Rosemary Hollis after the revelations that UK-made cluster bombs were used in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition.
We know, more or less, what we get in the way of defence contracts and jobs, but what we get from intelligence cooperation is less clear. It always is, because intelligence experts have a way of saying loftily that the intelligence is more important than our need to know.
That is an effective argument, and in principle often a valid one. But, like other arguments that pre-empt debate, it is too effective, and perhaps in consequence gets used too often.
It is, of course, also the case that it is the Saudi state and its relationship with Wahhabi and Salafi Islam that is a major contributory factor in the rise of the Islamic terrorism that Saudi intelligence cooperation is supposed to be helping us to resist. It’s bit like whacking someone on the leg and then offering a bandage to make it better.
Eleven years ago, after the London bombings, I wrote an article for Prospect magazine where I argued that the battle of ideas urged by Tony Blair at the time, which he claimed needed to take place within the Muslim community, needed to be fought on a wider field. As much as succumbing to Islamic extremism, the homegrown bombers of 7 July 2005 had perpetrated their killings because we had failed to convince them of the free values that we claim our country stands for.
I said it was urgently necessary to reverse the hollowing out of those free values, and the laziness and complacency that permits it, and to reassert them as something worth standing up for against extremism, ignorance and intolerance of whatever kind. That task is no less urgent now, and we have to take it seriously.
It may seem arrogant to say that ideas matter and money and economics ultimately don’t, but it is actually true. A country or a political system has to be based on an idea. The fundamental question is whether the idea of al-Qaida and Isis, of intolerance and hatred, and their kind of justice, is superior to our idea of freedom, tolerance and justice. I don’t think so. But the 7/7 bombers, and too many others since then, did – and do.
Islamic extremists say their bodies are their cruise missiles and cluster bombs, and they are right. They have faith and belief, and if we don’t believe in what we stand for, they will win and we will lose. So it is important to say what we mean, and mean what we say.
Or, put another way, alongside what we get from our relationship with Saudi Arabia, we also have to try to calculate what we lose. If we lose some credibility, that is bad. But if we lose our own integrity, that is a great deal worse, and potentially disastrous.
We cannot say we abhor use of weapons against civilians in Aleppo, and supply such weapons for use against civilians in Yemen.
We are not, ultimately, being a good friend to Saudi Arabia or UAE or Bahrain if we simply take their money and tell them what, in their fear and paranoia about their region, and their own insecurity about their uneasy hold on their own rule, we think they want to hear. The Saudis are in a difficult position, and their war in Yemen is not making things better. They need to hear some hard messages, and it is our job to tell them. We are in a rather good place to do it.
Ideas matter. Religion matters. And the sectarian confrontation between Sunni and Shia in the Middle East is only going to get worse if all do not make a concerted effort to put it right. It was a mistake for the UK to take sides in that confrontation (others, Germany for example, have rightly been more cautious).
British influence is not what it was, but the real question is whether, whatever its effectiveness, that influence is being applied in the right direction, to the right purpose. Is it currently being applied toward stability and long-term resolution of conflict, or towards the Treasury’s prosperity agenda? I think we know the answer.
Boris knew the answer, and recently suggested that in their proxy wars in the Middle East region, Saudi Arabia and Iran were equally to blame. He was ridiculed for a gaffe, because at around the same time Theresa May was on a trip to the Persian Gulf, among other things praising the Saudis for what she called their leadership.
Boris had some good moments in 2016, and some less good, notably around the Brexit referendum. But this supposed gaffe was nothing of the sort. We need to have the courage – like Boris, in this case – to tell the truth, and to tell it to the Saudis and their allies.
Because otherwise, some way down the road, Isis and its ilk may win.
