A week after telling Middle East that democracy cannot be dropped from 40,000ft, prime minister turns to the military
Danny Finkelstein is a wise man.
In his Times column last Wednesday, Finkelstein wrote that Britain would learn a great deal about the prime minister from his response to the Middle East crisis. Finkelstein, whose column appeared as David Cameron struggled to take command of the evacuation of British citizens from Libya during his trip to the Gulf, wrote:
The revolution sweeping through the Middle East will help to define our Prime Minister.
So what are we learning about the prime minister? What is the Cameron Doctrine? His statement to the House of Commons on Monday showed that the man who sweated bricks before voting in favour of the Iraq war in 2003 is now developing a taste for military action. This is what he told MPs:
We do not in any way rule out the use of military assets. We must not tolerate this regime using military force against its own people. In that context, I have asked the Ministry of Defence and the Chief of the Defence Staff to work with our allies on plans for a military no-fly zone. It is clear that this is an illegitimate regime that has lost the consent of its people, and our message to Colonel Gaddafi is simple: go now.
Simon Tisdall, the Guardian's foreign affairs commentator, was unamused. Simon wrote:
Criticised for reacting too slowly to the Libyan crisis, Britain and its allies now risk a dangerous, ill-thought out over-reaction in raising the prospect of direct western military intervention. If any lesson has been learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, it is that while it is very easy to get into a war in the Middle East, it is difficult to control events once engaged, and harder still to find a way out.
Cameron's bullish tone does appear to contrast with one of the central messages during his trip to the Middle East last week. In an attempt to distinguish himself from Tony Blair and George Bush jnr, the prime minister said outsiders should be careful about intervening. In Cairo the prime minister said:
I am not a naive neocon who thinks you can drop democracy out of an aeroplane at 40,000ft or that, simply by holding an election, you have satisfied the needs of democracy.
Cameron will no doubt argue that he is not talking about a neocon mission to reshape Libya. He will say that he simply wants to help a country in dire need. This, he will say, is an example of his middle way foreign policy which rejects the idea that the west should impose its will (the Bush jnr approach) and the idea the west should stand by when a dictator turns on his own people (the Bush snr approach).
But the prime minister will want to show that his interest in the military is not part of a rush to distract attention after the government's hesitant response to the Libyan crisis. Cameron will not want people to gain the impression that the Cameron Doctrine is: call for the armed forces to make up for lost (political) ground.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/wintour-and-watt/2011/mar/01/davidcameron-libya
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