Our reputation is in your hands, Mr Miliband

As Barack Obama awaits Congress’s vote on Syria there is one man who could restore Britain’s status as a key ally

Barack Obama’s decision to seek the approval of Congress before initiating international action against Syria has profound implications for both David Cameron and Ed Miliband.

Far from the President questioning the Prime Minister’s judgment in allowing Parliament to have the last word on military action, he has decided to follow his example and give a similar role to senators and congressmen.

What could better demonstrate the common political values that bind the United States and the United Kingdom together? In a healthy modern democracy the congressional as well as the parliamentary representatives of the people have to be consulted on the supreme questions of peace and war even if their concurrence cannot, as we have seen, be taken for granted.

For the Prime Minister, the President’s reaction demonstrates not only that they continue to have a warm and close friendship but that close co-operation between the US and UK will continue on defence, on intelligence and a wide range of political issues. The Anglo-American alliance survived undamaged, despite previous disagreements by Mr Obama’s and Mr Cameron’s predecessors on Vietnam, Bosnia and Grenada.

Last week was, if anything, less serious than these precedents. In the past, the disagreements were between the two governments. Last week the two governments agreed. It was the House of Commons that dissented. That may never happen to Vladimir Putin in the Russian Duma. The US President, however, is used to an unhelpful Congress most weeks of the year.

But Mr Obama’s decision to refer the Syrian issue to Congress is also of importance to Ed Miliband. As a Leader of the Opposition who, naturally, aspires to be Prime Minister he must be as concerned as Mr Cameron at the battering that Britain’s reputation as a robust ally has taken in Europe and throughout the Western world.

That it was he who whipped his MPs into defeating the Government on an important issue of foreign policy on which Europe and the US were, for once, united will have raised question marks not just in the White House but also in the Elysée Palace and elsewhere in Europe as to how tough and reliable a British prime minister he would be.

But Mr Miliband can benefit from the President’s decision. He is, obviously, desperate to distance himself and today’s Labour Party as far as possible from the shadow of Tony Blair and the irresponsible rush to war in Iraq by Mr Blair and George W. Bush.

Recent events demonstrate that Mr Obama’s United States is light years away from the United States of the second President Bush. Not only is the current President known to be unenthusiastic about military intervention in Muslim countries, he has also, to everyone’s surprise, postponed a US strike against Syria and insisted on a congressional vote that he could, easily have avoided given that America has a presidential and not a parliamentary system of government.

Mr Obama is no warmonger. This is a new kind of American President who will only authorise military action when the evidence is compelling, the ethical case unanswerable and the political need imperative.

These considerations will be welcome to all MPs and all political parties in Britain. But for Mr Miliband they now impose a very special obligation over the next few days.

Many MPs, from all the parties, who voted against the Government last Thursday made it clear that they were against military intervention — whether on principle, or because they believed that it would suck Britain into the Syrian civil war, or because they felt that it would make a bad situation worse.

That was not the position of the Leader of the Opposition. Sitting opposite him in the House of Commons I heard him emphasise several times in his speech that he and the Labour Party were not necessarily against military intervention as proposed by the Prime Minister.

He made it clear that to have his and his party’s support the evidence of Assad’s complicity must be compelling, the inspectors must have completed their work and the UN Security Council must have the opportunity to deliberate.

It seemed unlikely that these conditions could be met when the Commons debated last Thursday and when a US military strike was expected by the weekend at the latest.

Now the timing of any strike has been transformed. Congress will not deliberate until the week beginning September 9. The inspectors have now left Syria and the Security Council is able to give further deliberation this week.

Furthermore, the evidence of Syrian regime responsibility for the chemical weapons attacks is now compelling for anyone interested in evidence and not just speculation.

Sadly, it is now known that more than 1,400 men, women and children died, rather than 300 as initially reported. That indicates a sophisticated military capability on the part of those responsible that is far beyond anything available to the Syrian rebels.

In addition the United States has disclosed both intercept and human intelligence that links the chemical weapons attacks to Syrian officers under regime command. Much of this intelligence has now been published.

I assume that Mr Miliband meant what he said to Parliament last week. If he did he should acknowledge that his concerns about premature military action are now being met, albeit in an unexpected way.

He and the Prime Minister should meet privately and discuss whether there is now sufficient common ground that would allow them to agree a common British policy together with our international allies. There would need to be some serious discussion and hard bargaining. It would not be easy for either of them, but the national interest and the need to restore Britain’s international reputation must take precedence.

The Prime Minister, having been defeated in Parliament, cannot be expected to take the initiative in giving the House of Commons an opportunity to reconsider its decision unless he has reliable evidence that the main opposition party is keen to work with the Government on an agreed basis.

President Obama’s surprise initiative has now provided the time for that to be considered, discussed and, let us hope, agreed.

The House of Commons would not be unanimous. There would remain a significant minority who would remain, on principle, against international military intervention in response to the chemical weapons attacks. But both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have agreed that military intervention can be justified, even without the express approval of the Security Council.

Is it too much to expect them to provide, in these changed circumstances, the national leadership that the country would like and is entitled to see at a time of international crisis?

Sir Malcolm Rifkind is a former Foreign and Defence Secretary. He is Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament

@malcolmrifkind