Holding our nerve in Iraq

America's surrender lobby has won a vote in the US Congress to demand that a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq should commence in October. The Democratic majority has won a vote - but it cannot yet lose the war. President George W. Bush has announced that for only the second time in his presidency he will invoke his right of veto.

There is nothing of value to be gained by a precipitate withdrawal from Iraq, and that in the end is what Congress is proposing, notwithstanding the protests of Senate Leader Harry Reid to the contrary. Since the mid-term elections last November which delivered a Democratic majority in Congress, and the disastrous Baker-Hamilton report last December, which urged a swift withdrawal from Iraq, American "progressive" opinion has been doing its best to convince the world that the United States has lost the stomach for this particular fight. There are plenty of people in America as well as this country and across the world who simply do not want to face the reality of this war: a defeat for America is a defeat for the West, and a defeat for America is anything that can reasonably (or even unreasonably) be portrayed as such by the world's mass media, which generally speaking is not well-disposed towards the United States in any event.

There is reason to believe that the "surge" strategy announced by President Bush is having a beneficial effect. The upswing in terrorist activity of late is the result not of sectarian conflict in Iraq, but rather of Al-Qaeda activity, as Frederick Kagan explains:

The spate of car-bombs and suicide bombs, which the New York Times describes as "sectarian violence" and which many point to as evidence of the current strategy's failure, are very different from the sectarian strife we saw raging at the start of this year. Suicide bombs and car bombs are the copyright of al Qaeda and associated militant Islamist groups--Shiite militias prefer more precisely targeted killings when they kill and do not use such methods. Al Qaeda, a Sunni group, has conducted many of the recent attacks against fellow Sunnis in Anbar and elsewhere who have started to fight the terrorists. These attacks are not sectarian violence, but al Qaeda's attempts to regain its footing in its former strongholds or to establish bases in new areas. The current wave of violence is a surge by the one force fighting in Iraq that has declared its intention to destroy the United States. It is a surge in terrorist killing by the organization that almost every leading congressman believes America should be fighting. It is not evidence that sectarian violence is uncontrollable or that the Maliki government won't make concessions. It is evidence that our implacable foe is not ready to lose yet. Timelines for withdrawal can only encourage this enemy, which has always believed that killing enough people will drive the Americans away.

This last sentence holds the key point. Throughout the conflict, Al-Qaeda and its allies have known that the West's weak point is likely to be a lack of resolve: that our people will become weary, irresolute or just bored by the conflict and demand a way out. All that is needed for terrorism to win in Iraq is for the terrorists to hold their nerve longer than we can hold ours. If they can manage that, then Islamism will have won its first military victory over the West. It really is that simple: cowardly and opportunistic votes in the United States Senate, if not vetoed by the President, hand the victory to the enemy in this battle, and guarantee that the West will have many more battles to fight in the future.

A very British farce

The descent of the Iranian hostage episode from potential tragedy to farce, and a rather unfunny one at that, is largely complete. Janet Daley excoriates the UK government, the Iranian government, the media, the abducted service personnel, and especially New Labour.

So it comes to this: not a threat of action or even a diplomatic showdown with Iran over its criminal act of seizing hostages, but a PR war.

In their disgust at the decision to permit the Inglorious Fifteen to sell their stories to the press, some senior military people have proclaimed themselves shocked by the "media circus" that the Ministry of Defence appears to be condoning.

What did they expect? Unprecedented, bizarre, shaming - yes, all of that. But scarcely surprising. Once Iran's lunatic of a president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was perceived to have pulled off what a procession of commentators decreed to be a "public relations coup", the Blair Government knew that it had to mobilise its most terrifying forces.

Never mind UN resolutions. No more messing about in boats trying to block Iranian arms being shipped into Iraq. There was only one source of power in the world that could rescue us from this humiliation - the tabloid newspapers.

What could possibly cancel out the memory of Mr Ahmadinejad's beaming triumph as the grinning British personnel received their goody bags and their "gift" of freedom? Why, the deeply human stories ("the private torment") of each of those captives, of course - as told to a red-top reporter more accustomed to retailing the agonies of footballers' girlfriends.

Iran may always have been the most important supplier of the insurgency in Iraq that is murdering British troops and Iraqi civilians - we could live with that, apparently. But once it had won the Battle of the Media, it was time to get serious.

The manipulation of public opinion is the one front on which this Government will cede to no one. And that, as the electorate finally seems to have understood, is the sum total - the raison d'être, the fundamental essence - of New Labour.

Certainly Janet seems to have hit on the only plausible reason why the Ministry of Defence might originally have allowed the hostages to sell their stories. If you are losing an information war it is tempting to enlist the help of one of the most fearsome propaganda machines on the planet. However, if this was a plan, rather than an accident, it has backfired very badly indeed.

Not only are the immediate victims of this episode now being represented as villains ("the Inglorious Fifteen"), but President Ahmedinejad of the Islamic Republic of Iran is being praised for his gracious act of forgiveness. This man who organises global conferences for holocaust deniers, who has frankly announced his intention to wipe Israel off the map, who supports terrorist groups worldwide, and who is alleged by some to have been personally involved in the 444 day American Embassy hostage crisis in Teheran during the Iranian revolution, now receives praise from an unexpected quarter:

A leading Church of England bishop has claimed the Iranian president showed a better understanding of “moral and spiritual” values at the end of the naval hostage crisis than Britain’s political leaders.

Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, contrasted the words of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad favourably with Britain’s “free-floating” attitudes.

The bishop said that, watching the release of the British sailors and marines last week, “I saw on the one hand what Iran was doing, and what the president [of Iran] said had much to do with the moral and spiritual tradition of their country.

“The president talked about the religious background to the release, with reference to the Prophet’s birthday and the passing over of Christ. What struck me was that if there were any values on the British side they were free-floating and not anchored in a spiritual and moral tradition.

“Unless we reroot ourselves in a spiritual and moral tradition, we won’t know what we stand for and will not be able to confront other people, countries and ideological movements who are very clear where they stand.”

On the face of it, this is the kind of comment that makes one wonder whether it might be wiser to seek moral and spiritual guidance from any drunk in a pub, rather than a bishop of the established Church. Nevertheless, the Bishop of Rochester is no fool, and in a strange way he has a point.

The United Kingdom is at a low ebb indeed. We can muster no effective response to an act of piracy against our people and an act of war against our country. Commentators such as Oliver Kamm and Daniel Finkelstein who claim that Iran lost out in this episode because they released our people without concession from London are missing the point. The release of our hostages was the Iranian victory - the final humiliation which Iran could inflict upon us before we started heaping further humiliations upon ourselves.

Can it really be said that our country, society and way of life are now morally and spiritually inferior to Iran? When our kidnapped military personnel convey the impression that they are taking part in Military Big Brother, when the cult of celebrity and money takes precedence over the dignity and restraint that are expected from our servicemen and women in such circumstances (no wonder the families of those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are so angry), when our bishops praise the graciousness of the kidnapping, holocaust-denying, terrorist-supporting maniacal gangster who happens to be president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, how could anybody say such a thing?

Oliver Kamm criticises the Bishop of Rochester's remarks in these terms:

The Bishop, on my reading, is merely lamenting that modern Britain lacks a coherent sense of moral and spiritual purpose. He is, unfortunately, too obtuse to realise that his reference to the spiritual values of Iran's puppet-president illustrates the nonsense of his argument. Of course we're not "anchored in a spiritual and moral tradition". That's because we're a free society, in which we may profess whatever we like about origins, eschatology and the basis of ethics. What binds us is not a set of religious doctrines but common citizenship and democratic rights under the rule of law. If you want to see what the alternative is like, Iran is not a bad place to start.

Regrettably, on this occasion, Oliver Kamm is wrong. A spiritual and moral tradition is not the same thing as a religious tradition in this context. Western Civilisation is built upon core values deriving not just from the Judeo-Christian ethic, but also from the cultural heritage of Greece and Rome. These values are manifest in representative democracy and the rule of law, liberal capitalism and free trade; they are Enlightenment values. These have helped to fashion this nation and others. They are the foundation of freedom itself.

The nobility of spirit which enables a nation to prosper in the world, which drove Britain on through the darkest days of the Second World War, which sustained Margaret Thatcher through the Falklands War, and inspired Tony Blair to attempt the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq, now appears to have deserted us completely. A profound reform of our nation is required which goes beyond a mere change in government. Nothing short of a moral and spiritual reformation (not necessarily a religious one) is needed if our nation is to survive; for at present it appears to have lost the will to live.

The Falklands spirit

The fascinating drama-documentary on BBC Radio 4, which recalls the 1982 Falklands War and the political machinations surrounding it, presents an interesting contrast to the political situation today.

In 1982 Margaret Thatcher's unpopular Conservative government was faced with an act of naked aggression by the Argentine military junta in the form of the invasion of the Falkland Islands. Although international opinion was generally favourable towards British complaints, even elements of the Reagan administration were initially reluctant to intervene forcefully on our side.

In the end, Margaret Thatcher was faced with a stark decision: should the nation go to war to defend the life and liberty of two thousand Falkland Islanders? Was there a qualitative distinction to be drawn between Hitler's aggression and that of the Argentinian dictator Galtieri? And perhaps most crucially of all, did the British people have the stomach to fight for these fundamental principles in 1982 as they had done in 1940?

We all know the decision that the British government reached on that occasion, and the final outcome: that the Falkland Islanders were liberated, the territory retaken, and that a considerable number of lives were lost. Nevertheless, the fundamental principles of the defence of freedom, democracy and the rule of law were upheld.

Fast forward to 2007. The British government has just faced what amounts to a hostage crisis, with fifteen British sailors abducted by Iran in an act of piracy - in fact, an act of war. Those hostages, after facing torture and exploitation in contravention of the standards of the Geneva convention, have now been released and are at home with their families. No lives have been lost. The fundamental principles of the defence of freedom, democracy and the rule of law have not been upheld.

Whilst we are all naturally grateful that our service personnel have been safely returned, the fact remains that the UK has been humiliated. President Ahmedinejad seized the opportunity to stage a massive propaganda coup by releasing our men and women not because he is a religious, merciful man intent on bestowing gifts upon the British people at Eastertide, but because there was no advantage to Iran in keeping the hostages any longer. The judgement of the Iranians must have been that any further humiliation of the UK would be superfluous: by failing to rally effectively on our behalf, the European Union and the United Nations had already done the Iranians' work for them.

The message that the Iranians and any other enterprising putative kidnappers of British service men and women will have taken from this episode is as follows: If your band of kidnappers/pirates is sufficiently large and well armed then British soldiers will not fight back, and their comrades will not try to rescue them. And while the international community may condemn your actions it will not do so in particularly strong terms, and will certainly not take any measures which might cause you particular inconvenience.

Whatever the justification for the actions of our armed forces and the British government in this matter, it is imperative that hostage crises of this kind should not be allowed to recur. Rules of engagement must be changed such that British forces are authorised to defend themselves adequately, and they should be equipped so that they can defend themselves as forcefully as necessary. The softly, softly approach that may or may not have expedited the safe release of our hostages has also sent a dangerous signal to the Iranian government and terrorists everywhere. A new signal urgently needs to be sent: we were not seen as a soft touch in 1982; we must not be seen to be so now.