10 April 2002
I am glad to have this opportunity on my return from the United States to address the Arab nation through your pages. The discussions I had there with President Bush covered a number of issues of great importance to you all. And so I am taking this opportunity to include you in our dialogue. Britain has long valued its close relations with the Arab world. And we must take care not only to communicate our views and explain our positions to the governments in your region, but also to the people.
Foremost in your thoughts, I know, is the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. The plight of the Middle East would make the hardest heart break. Anyone with an ounce of humanity watching the current horrors unfold on TV screens across the world is willing the international community to help. So let me explain to you how I think we can and must help.
The pressure we can best apply is to try - because they’re not frankly going to be able to do this on their own - is to bring both sides together, to establish first of all the minimum steps of security necessary to restore confidence and then get into a situation where the proper political dialogue can begin. Despite all the dreadful news - and it is a tragedy what is happening there - the ray of hope, if you like, is the acceptance very broadly now that two states, Israeli and Palestinian, have to be able to exist side by side. And in the end there is no other solution. The Palestinians aren’t going to depart and neither are the Israelis, so we have to have a situation where the two can live together.
We had an experience of conflict in Northern Ireland and I remember in the 1970s when there were bombs going off in British pubs, where there were scores of people being killed, nothing as bad, as terrible as what is happening in the Middle East but still terrible for people here.
And for 20 years the Republicans and elements of Irish nationalism engaged in terrorism, we engaged in counter measures and reprisals, we felt deeply that these were terrorists who deserved nothing but the full force of law against them.
And yet in the end everyone understood that there was no way there was simply a security answer to the problem. Of course security is one part of it but we also have to have a political process in which the basic causes of the conflict can be resolved and that is what has got to happen now, and the sooner we do it, it seems to me, the better.
As I said in a speech I gave at College Station, Texas, two things are necessary now. There must be: an acceptance by all of the fixed points of principle for any final settlement, which means - Israel, secure, its right to existence unchallenged in the Arab world; and a viable Palestinian state for the Palestinian people; and a ceasefire agreed now, to let the political dialogue recommence.
In monitoring any such ceasefire and in ensuring that both sides abide by their commitments, we and others stand ready to help in any way we can. I know the deep-rooted objections to any outside help. But when the situation is as grim as it is now, only some external assistance can establish the minimum trust to get security back on the agenda in a realistic way. And without a proper ceasefire we can’t even take the first steps.
I welcome the peace initiative proposed by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. I believe that in parallel with a ceasefire the principles he set out should be incorporated in a further UN Security Council Resolution as the way forward politically. Again, Northern Ireland taught me that you need a political vision of the final settlement and small practical steps going together, to get on the road to peace.
These were not the only issues I discussed with President Bush. Afghanistan was also high on our agenda. For years Afghanistan was ruled by the Taliban. For years it nurtured the Al Qaida terrorist network. For years it lived off terror and the drugs trade, a failed state purveying religious and political extremism, with its people ground under the heel of the fanatic. What erupted on the streets of New York on September 11 was not an attack on America alone. It was an attack on us all.
Fortunately, in this case, the world stood firm. America took the lead, but it led a coalition of extraordinarily wide international proportions. Countries queued up to help. We acted with care, under the clear and courageous leadership of President Bush. The Taliban are gone as a government. Al Qaida’s network has been destroyed in Afghanistan, though without doubt a residual capability remains and we should still be immensely vigilant. The Afghan people feel liberated not oppressed and have at least a chance of a better future.
But I want to give this warning. There is a real danger we forget the lessons of September 11. Human beings recover from tragedy and the memory becomes less fraught. That is a healthy part of living. But we should learn from our experience.
The most obvious lesson is indeed our interdependence. For a time our world stood still. Quite apart from our security, the shock impacted on economic confidence, on business, on trade - the Middle Eastern economy took a very hard knock - and it is only now with the terrorist network on the run, that confidence is really returning. Every nation in the world felt the reverberation of that fateful day. And that has been well illustrated by the role which the United Nations - under Kofi Annan’s excellent leadership - has played since September 11.
We must be prepared to act where terrorism or Weapons of Mass Destruction threaten us. The fight against international terrorism is right. We should pursue it vigorously. Not just in Afghanistan but elsewhere. Not just by military means but by disrupting the finances of terrorism, getting at the middle men, the bankrollers of the trade in terror and WMD. Since September 11 the action has been considerable, in many countries. But there should be no let up.
If necessary the action should be military and again, if necessary and justified, it should involve regime change. I have been involved as British Prime Minister in three conflicts involving regime change: Milosevic - the Taliban - and Sierra Leone, where a country of six million people was saved from a murderous group of gangsters who had hijacked the democratically elected government.
Britain is immensely proud of the part our forces have played and with the results but I can honestly say the people most pleased have been the people living under the regime in question. Never forget: they are the true victims. I’ll always remember driving through the villages near Freetown in Sierra Leone seeing the people rejoicing - many of them amputees through the brutality from which they had been liberated - and their joy at being free to debate, argue and vote as they wished.
We cannot, of course, intervene in all cases but where countries are engaged in the terror or WMD business, we should not shirk from confronting them. Some can be offered a way out, a route to respectability. I hope in time that Syria, Iran and even North Korea can accept the need to change their relations dramatically with the outside world. A new relationship is on offer. But they must know that sponsoring terrorism or WMD is not acceptable.
As for Iraq, I know some fear precipitate action. They needn’t. We will proceed, as we did after September 11, in a calm, measured, sensible but firm way. But leaving Iraq to develop WMD, in flagrant breach of no less than nine separate UNSCRs, refusing still to allow weapons inspectors back to do their work properly, is not an option. The regime of Saddam is detestable. It is brutal and repressive, political opponents are routinely tortured and executed. It is a regime without a qualm in sacrificing the lives of its citizens to preserve itself, or starting wars with neighbouring states and it has used chemical weapons against its own people.
As I say, the moment for decision on how to act is not yet with us. But to allow WMD to be developed by a state like Iraq without let or hindrance would be grossly to ignore the lessons of September 11 and we will not do it. The message to Saddam is clear: he has to let the inspectors back in, anyone, any time, any place that the international community demands.
Sometimes the Arab world criticises Britain for its closeness to the United States. There are some voices which call for us to emphasise our differences. But I disagree. The world works better when the US and the EU stand together. Without standing together we could never have rescued the Muslim peoples of the former Yugoslavia from the rule of Milosevic. We could not have saved the people of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. And I hope that together we can resolve the current crisis in the Middle East and help to build an independent, viable Palestinian state, living in peace with its Israeli neighbour.
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