We should return to Middle East, says Johnson
BRITAIN must dare to step back into some of the world’s most intractable conflict zones in the Middle East to avoid decades of further terror and instability, Boris Johnson will say today.
In a speech setting out his vision for foreign policy after Brexit, the Foreign Secretary argues that the scars left by Western interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya must not paralyse Britain’s willingness to engage.
“British foreign policy is not the problem; it is part of the solution,” he will say, arguing that the troubles in Syria, Yemen and the wider Middle East “have been exacerbated not so much by Western meddling as by our aloofness”.
The speech in London is delivered against a backdrop of rising tensions in the Middle East following Donald Trump’s provocative decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, raising questions in Europe about the wider role of the US. Theresa May condemned the American move yesterday, saying: “We believe it is unhelpful in terms of prospects for peace in the region.”
In his speech, Mr Johnson will both diagnose the causes of jihadism and the unravelling of the Middle East while prescribing a package of British re-engagement both at home and abroad.
At home, Mr Johnson will call for more pressure on online extremist material, while announcing that the Muslim Brotherhood will face “greater scrutiny” of its “so-called charity work”, and a tougher visa regime. He takes aim at Michel Barnier, the EU’S chief Brexit negotiator, for suggesting in a recent speech that in voting to leave the EU in the midst of a wave of terror attacks, Britain had chosen to go it alone, “rather than stay shoulder to shoulder with the union”.
Setting out how Britain must begin a full-spectrum engagement with the Middle East – including air strikes, aid and women’s education – Mr Johnson will dismiss Mr Barnier’s claim as “outrageous” given the UK’S recent
contribution to ending Isil’s reign in
Raqqa, its Syrian capital.
“When you consider the work of our police, our security services and our peerless intelligence services, who are standing ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with their colleagues, not just in Europe but around the world, it is bizarre and outrageous that Michel Barnier should have chosen last week to deprecate the British contribution,” he will say.
As questions are raised in Europe about both US and UK commitment to global common issues, Mr Johnson will accept that the West made some “horrendous mistakes” following the inva- sion of Iraq, but will add that it is time to confront the idea that Western foreign policy has been exclusively to blame for the horrors that have unfolded in the Middle East since 2003.
“It is a fallacy that is at once glib, egotistical and which simply feeds the narrative of the jihadis,” he is to say, demanding that leaders of the Muslim world confront the menace of “Islamist terror”, whose victims, he notes, are 98 per cent innocent Muslims.
Chiding Britain for failing to intervene after the Assad regime’s chemical weapons attack in August 2013, Mr Johnson argues it is time to “collectively re-insert ourselves” into Syria and the wider Middle East in order shape a different future.
“We willed the end, and failed to will the means – leaving the pitch wide open for Russia and Iran,” he says of the West’s approach to the Syrian crisis.
“I am afraid that we must now adjust to reality and accept that our policy has not succeeded, to put it charitably.”
Instead of going into a “sulk”, Britain must resolve the conflicts in Syria and Yemen while looking to unite tribal factions in Libya following the Francobritish intervention that led to the toppling of Colonel Gaddafi.
“We need more engagement, not less, because if you look at events since 2013, when the Britain and the US decided not to intervene in Syria even after Assad had used chemical weapons, you could not say that we managed to insulate ourselves from the region,” he will say.
The Western retreat succeeded only in creating ungoverned spaces that have enabled the “virus” of jihadism to spread, requiring a new and concerted joint effort from Western and Middle Eastern governments.
At home, the Government will continue to deploy its anti-radicalism strategy Prevent, while dredging the internet for extremist propaganda and ordering closer scrutiny of the Muslim Brotherhood organisation which Mr Johnson accuses of “encouraging terrorism”.
As well as “kinetic” military contributions of drones and air strikes, Mr Johnson wants to see British aid to drive up female literacy and convince the universities of the Muslim world to adopt a more global outlook.
There is “not a single university in the Muslim world that makes the top 200”, he will say.