THESE VITAL SPEECHES

40
CICERO SPEECHWRITING AWARDS
That’s not an attack on privacy.
It’s the only way to safeguard privacy
while acting against the enemies of
our free society who scheme to bring it
down.
What about how technology is changing
foreign policy?
A Tale of Two Massacres
Syria, February 1982
The Syrian army under the first
President Assad attacked Hama, Syria’s
fourth largest city, to put down a local
Islamist uprising.
They killed about 20,000 fellow Syrians,
torturing many more.
Three times the death toll of Srebrenica.
Seven times 9/11.
These horrendous events went largely
unknown to the rest of the world. Even
as news seeped out, global reaction
stayed muted. There was little public
pressure. It suited most governments to
look away.
Compare that crime against humanity
with the shooting down of Malaysia
Airlines flight MH17, blown from the
sky over Ukraine in July last year.
Swarms of amateurs and experts
alike around the world gathered on the
Internet.
They drew on live satellite imagery
and other open-source Internet sites.
They narrowed down with amazing
accuracy the likely launch-point of the
missile, the type of missile used, and the
likely people responsible. They punched
big fast holes in the official story coming
from Moscow, or appearing on the
Internet.
In this case the finger of guilt pointed
straight at Moscow-backed separatists.
James Gibney at Bloomberg calls this
a “citizen-driven open-source intelligence
revolution”. Citizens have formidable
network power to scrutinise and
check what is going on across the planet.
Two months ago, bombs fell on a
Médecins sans Frontières hospital in
Afghanistan. Crowd-sourced indignation
and investigation forced rapid American
acceptance of responsibility.
It‘s harder and harder to keep things
secret or concealed or even delayed, as
the bringing down of the Russian plane
in Sinai has shown.
The immediacy and intensity of
today’s technological transparency gives
our political leaders painful problems.
First problem. Time
Harold MacMillan was asked about
the hardest challenge of government:
“Events, dear boy, events”.
These days, events and sensations and
disasters come thick and fast. The 24/7
media cycle and incessant Internet arguments
put leaders under huge pressure.
Politicians feel compelled to react
quickly, often through actions offering
immediate appeal that look likely to shut
up the noisiest critics.
When the World demands an instant
response it’s harder to show real
leadership. Taking people along a path
that is tough and slow and uncomfortable
and unpopular to achieve a
greater, wiser goal.
Back to Syria
President Assad the son, as brutal
as his father. In 2011, when the Syrian
people demonstrate against his rule, he
turns the army onto them.
The West is torn: “How many more
crises in the Islamic World are going to
demand our attention?” “Let the Syrians
sort this out themselves!”
In 2013 Assad uses chemical weapons
against his own people. A breach of
international conventions set up after the
horrors of World War One.
This war crime demands a swift,
strong response: it’s vital to hold the
line against such horrendous illegal
weapons.
Our government takes a clear position
that military action is required,
but then seeks approval from Parliament.
Reflecting public unease about
yet another Middle East intervention,
Parliament says no to military action.
President Obama now has doubts
whether he can go ahead without Congress’s
support.
This left the UK and our Western allies
in a hopeless position. ‘Demanding’
the departure of Assad without tackling
his clear breach of international law.
What’s happened since then?
Syria’s raging civil war has created
space for the rise of ISIS, who now
pose the worst terrorist threat in living
memory. Appalling refugee crises in
Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. Refugees
coming to Europe in unmanageable
numbers, undermining European
solidarity. Now Russia is involved, unconstrained
by democratic pressures or
concern for civilian casualties, using air
power and missiles to prop up the dismal
Assad regime.
None of this is easy. It’s agonisingly
hard.
I was part of the Whitehall system
trying to find a coherent way forward.
We all share some responsibility for
the grim outcomes we now see.
When time-lines are so short and
technology gives a deafening voice to
all sorts of critics, well intentioned and
ill-intentioned alike, thinking strategically
becomes next to impossible in a
modern democracy.
Studied caution is one thing. Paralysis
another.
In the wake of the Paris attacks, we
now have another chance to develop
a strategy to put an end to the misery
of the Syrian people, and remove ISIS
from its strongholds.
It will require both military and
political action.
A new diplomatic process for Syria
has started. It deserves our every effort.
The outcome of that process will be
shaped by the relative strength of the
forces on the ground. If we want moderates
to have a voice, we need to support
them militarily.
Second problem. Trust
Technology makes us all more accountable.
MPs expenses. Bankers and
financial risk. The media and phone
tapping.
All healthy, proper exposure of abuse.
But this spills over into unbridled
cynicism.
Anything confidential or secret must
be a cover-up! If the establishment was
not forthcoming on that one, why trust it
on anything else?
Patient diplomacy relies on confidentiality.
For years the Iran nuclear talks were
stuck.
Both the US and Iran faced forces at
home rejecting compromise. It all got
too open.
The Obama Administration made a
sustained new effort with Iran through
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