I thank the Chairman for the invitation. I am very honoured to be here today. The rise of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, ISIS, is a pivotal moment in international relations. I have spent most of my adult life studying the Middle East, travelling to it, researching and writing about it, teaching on the subject. I have never been more dispirited, concerned, disillusioned about the future of the Middle East than I am today and that is directly related to the rise of the ISIS crisis. Now is a moment for the international community to pause and seriously evaluate this particular crisis, which is not just a Middle Eastern crisis but a global one. The ISIS crisis is at the top of the international agenda. How did we get here and what can and should the international community do about this crisis? I encourage the members of this committee to think about what particular contribution Ireland can make toward alleviating and resolving the ISIS crisis.
The roots of the crisis are located in Syria. It does have Iraqi roots and the background to that is in the document I circulated. We would not be having an ISIS crisis had there not been a conflict in Syria. Fundamentally, the failure of the international community to deal with the three and a half year ongoing bloodshed and carnage in Syria has led to this particular crisis moment in international relations. According to the United Nations today, Syria represents the biggest humanitarian and moral crisis of the 21st century, replete with the displacement of nearly half of Syria’s population, either as refugees or internally displaced, the largest refugee crisis of the 21st century and a human rights crisis that is borderline genocidal. The words "state-sanctioned war crimes" and "crimes against humanity" litter the human rights documentation on this conflict. There is a rape crisis, a child-killing crisis, a public health crisis and a starvation crisis in Syria but Syria is much more than that; Syria is fundamentally a political crisis.
The origins of the crisis in Syria that has produced ISIS go back to March 2011 and the context of the Arab Spring when there were pro-democracy protests against authoritarian regimes throughout the Middle East and north Africa which eventually spread to Syria. It is important to remember that at least for the first six months of the Syrian uprising, these protests were non-violent and non-sectarian. There was no ISIS or al-Qaeda to be found. There were pro-democracy protesters who protested in the best spirit of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi in challenging one-family rule for 41 years. It was the brutality in the crackdown by the Assad regime on peaceful protesters that led to the militarisation of the uprising and, fundamentally, its Islamisation and extreme development in a militant Islamic current known as Islamic State.
While this was happening, the international community stood on the sidelines and watched things deteriorate. The general view most people had was that the UN Security Council was deadlocked and could not do anything about it. Russia and China were on one side, with the United States and the European Union on the other. There was no agreement. Although we could pass a few resolutions, hold a bunch of meetings and travel to Geneva, fundamentally nothing was done and the position worsened. By the beginning of 2014, there was a general view that because of the deadlock, the situation in Syria had to burn itself out. Nobody wanted to take charge or speak up. There was a general view that as bad as the situation in Syria was, what had happened there could be contained. That was the view of many realists in the United States; they believed it did not really affect the world, the West or the United States. The operating assumption was that events in Syria could be "contained". We now know that the conflict in Syria could not be contained and it has spread to Iraq. ISIS is on the outskirts of Baghdad and was almost in Iraqi Kurdistan, having taken the major city of Erbil. The crisis in Syria has destabilised the entire region.
After a very significant western - American-led - troop deployment in Iraq and the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the region as a whole, the United States and the world has had to reinvest and re-engage in the Middle East because of the broad failure of the international community to take the crisis in Syria seriously from the start. It is interesting to ask if the international community had responded much more effectively and earlier, if we would have an ISIS crisis today. It is useful for us to litigate what could or should have been done, but we must deal with what can be done at this time. In this context, it is important to emphasise the centrality of Syria to the ISIS crisis cannot be ignored or denied. The five western hostages beheaded by ISIS were killed in Syria where ISIS was reborn and reconstituted. According to US intelligence estimates, two thirds of ISIS military forces are located in Syria. There is no solution to the ISIS crisis without debating a political solution on the future of Syria, as the issues are deeply interlinked.
The question is what role Ireland can play in tackling this crisis. I am here to encourage it to use its soft power in the global community and specifically the Middle East to help to push the conflict in the right direction. Ireland has a very good reputation in the Middle East because of its political history in struggling for self-determination, dignity and human rights. There is also the very principled stand it has taken on the core identity issue in the Middle East - the Palestine-Israel crisis. Support for Palestinian self-determination has given Ireland much goodwill and if it could speak up and start to put the situation in Syria back on the agenda, specifically how to reach a political solution, the world would start to take notice.
There are some actions that Ireland could and should take to help to push this conflict in the right direction towards a resolution. It could support the struggle for self-determination, dignity and democracy for the people of Syria that began three and half years ago with a peaceful uprising against the Assad family. In keeping with this, there is a Friends of Syria group made up of several countries that have supported the struggle in Syria and Ireland could join that group. It could also join the 112 countries which have designated the Syrian National Council as "the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people" in contrast to the Assad regime. Ireland could also support the moderate Syria rebels who have been abandoned by the world by supporting the creation of a no-fly zone and a buffer zone where the people in question could reconstitute. There is no solution to the Syrian crisis unless moderate political forces can start fighting against ISIS and the Assad regime which are basically two sides of the same coin. We need the types of group supported by the international community, including Ireland.
Ireland could get behind the newly released document entitled Syrian Freedom Charter, which has been circulated from Syrian civil society and is basically a blueprint for the future of a democratic Syria. It is based on the 1955 South African freedom charter - a great blueprint - and countries such as Ireland, with a good reputation and commitment to human rights and democracy, in supporting the voice of that document could help to push events forward in a political fashion.
Ireland could also support the recent French proposal which advocates that we learn the lessons of recent events in Kobani on the Syrian-Turkish border. We can use that model to try to save Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria which is almost under complete siege by the Assad regime. There is a small element of moderate rebels still there and 300,000 people are about to be besieged. France has articulated a proposal to come to the rescue of these citizens in the moderate Syrian rebel forces. It is a plan that Ireland should support in trying to advance a resolution of the conflict.
As indicated in my document, former President Jimmy Carter has brought forward a three point peace proposal to resolve the Syrian crisis and Ireland could lend support to it. There are also a number of UN resolutions that remain unenforced that relate to humanitarian aid, including UN Security Council Resolutions 2139 (2014) and 2165 (2014). Ireland could give a voice to them.
We need a threefold strategy to push the issue forward by supporting moderate Syrian rebel forces to defeat militarily; removing the root causes of political extremism in the Syrian regime, specifically the Assad regime; and putting in place a moderate government that would ensure there could be no rise of religious extremism, and ensuring Syria can begin to build a future that is inclusive, representative and truly democratic.