Virtue without force in Syria is of no use to anyone

Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

Picture: AFP (File)

By Charles Moore
7:57PM BST 02 Oct 2015

By refusing to flex his military muscle, Barack Obama makes America ineffectual on the world stage. There's nothing moral about that

On Wednesday, we learnt from Jeremy Corbyn that, whatever policy his party might work out on the subject, he, as prime minister, would not press the nuclear button. This means that he has already turned Labour back into being the party of one-sided nuclear disarmament: if the man with the button won’t, whatever happens, press it, then having the button means nothing.

"Once upon a time, a certain British female prime minister warned a US president facing a Middle East crisis not to 'go wobbly'"

Appearing on BBC Question Time in Cardiff on Thursday night, I found that most of the audience understood this, and feared it. Mr Corbyn’s preference for what he sees as his personal virtue over the defence of his country will help him lose the next general election (if he gets that far), just as Labour was smashed by Margaret Thatcher over the issue in 1983 and 1987.

But there was a vocal minority, including two of our panel of five – the Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood and the singer Charlotte Church – who thought otherwise. Their line was that the pursuit of peace was paramount, and they seemed unable to take in the idea that peace can sometimes be best preserved by the legitimate threat of retaliatory violence. They approached the (non-nuclear) question of what to do about Syria in a similar spirit. Their solutions included lots more talks (Leanne Wood), stopping climate change and “asking the Syrian people what they want” (Charlotte Church), but nothing involving a single gun, missile or combat aircraft. Ms Church was personally charming, so I felt very anxious at the thought of her trying out her consultation process on the streets of Aleppo.

Many of these Corbyn-ish people are neither stupid nor nasty, but they do have a very dangerous idea about morality in international relations, which is that being strongly on the side of virtue is enough. Their error is encapsulated in Hilaire Belloc’s lines: “Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight,/ But roaring Bill (who killed him) thought it right.” The roaring Bills – roaring Vladimir and roaring Bashar and roaring Isil – are pleased when the pale Ebenezers gain power.

“I am not George W Bush”

Barack Obama

I am not so worried about Mr Corbyn, because I don’t think he can win. A much, much more important Ebenezer, however, is doing great harm to peace and order in the world. It is a puzzle that people still do not notice it much.

On the day before Mr Corbyn expounded his love of peace to his party’s conference, the President of the United States of America addressed the United Nations. Barack Obama constantly praised American international action to help sustainable development and prevent climate change and Aids, but was almost isolationist when it came to exerting political and military power in the world. He said how awful Bashar al-Assad was, how this affected stability in the region and created refugees, and how it wouldn’t happen if Syria were a democracy; but he steadfastly refused to lead America to change these things.

As if to show what it thought of Mr Obama, roaring Russia bombed a variety of anti-Assad targets in Syria the following day. It has launched no such aggression in the Middle East since the Second World War. Thanks to this US President, it knew that it could hack another chunk out of the tottering edifice of the international order with impunity.

In one of those uplifting phrases of which he is so fond, Mr Obama declared in New York that nowadays “the measure of strength is no longer defined by the control of territory”. One would like to think he is right: it is certainly true that Russia’s behaviour, let alone Assad’s, or that of Isil, is ultimately self-destructive. But what do you actually do in a world where many nasty people are still obsessed with the control of territory? Do you let Isil establish a new, murderous theocracy in the Middle East, or allow Assad to cause the death of another 220,000 people getting back what he has lost? What use is it to say to the people of Ukraine that the control of territory doesn’t make you strong, if Russia is trying, by violence and intimidation, to take their territory away from them? The first message of Mr Obama as he swept to power was

“I am not George W Bush”. Many people were glad to hear it, but it does not, all by itself, sustain a foreign policy for eight years in office.

Mr Obama reminded the UN that America is “the most powerful nation in the world”. Yet he is making a virtue of not using that power. This does not automatically create peace: often it creates a vacuum. Into that vacuum have rushed some of the most unpleasant people on the planet. He says America’s strength should not be defined by “opposition to old enemies, perceived adversaries”, but these enemies – such as Russia and what Mr Obama calls “resurgent Islam” – do gain strength from opposing and humiliating America. Even when he tries to suck up to them, they remain fierce in their ill will to his country.

"We have to be frank that the biggest problem we have today is the Islamist extremism which gave birth to Isil"

David Cameron at the UN

And in ill will to his country’s allies, too. In recent years, these have had little or nothing to show for their friendship with America. The long list includes Egypt, Jordan, India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, and even Britain. Iran, on the other hand, is indulged. In his UN speech, Mr Obama complained that “Chanting 'Death to America’ does not create more jobs, or make Iran more secure”, and he deplored its continued backing for “violent proxies” in the region.

Yet in another part of his speech, he hymned his own achievement in the deal over the Iranian nuclear programme. He claimed this proved that Iran could “change course, accept constraints”. I think if the British government invited its citizens to chant “Death to America” and supported terrorists who put this into practice, we would rightly be made to pay a punitively high price. When Iran does it, it gets brought in from the cold.

So far, for a variety of reasons, David Cameron has borne this patiently. He has a genuine regard for Mr Obama, and also made a political calculation about who would win and with whom it looks good to be photographed smiling. But the Obama vacuum does, in fact, explain much of the Conservatives’ weakness over defence, since it deprives us of the context for a strategy.

After the UN speech, Mr Cameron attended a meeting there of world leaders, chaired by Mr Obama, to discuss extremism. I am surprised that his remarks were not much picked up here. “Barack,” he began, “you’ve said it, and you’re right – every religion has its extremists. But we have to be frank that the biggest problem we have today is the Islamist extremist problem which has given birth to Isil… and so many other groups.” We do have to be frank; and because of Mr Obama, we still are not being.

Once upon a time, a certain British female prime minister warned a US president facing a Middle East crisis not to “go wobbly”. One gets the feeling that Mr Cameron is coming close to saying something similar. It will be good if he does.