Thanks to an unholy alliance of left and right, Britain retreated from its role as a world leader this week

I have to say that I'm thoroughly disappointed with parliament, Ed Miliband and the Tory right for what happened on Thursday evening. Britain retreated from our position as a world leader and a historically bold advocate of liberal interventionism, and we are a morally poorer and weaker nation for it. We are perhaps not now Belgium, as one senior minister reportedly put it, but we have chosen to leave the hard work of enforcing international law to America and France and instead taken a position next to Germany, a nation that avoids military interventionism mostly because of its uniquely sensitive history – we have no such rationale for our actions. As Dan Hodges, so frustrated by the vote that he formally resigned Labour (though he at least still promised to continue voting with the party), has pointed out, we have also told our Israeli allies that they may have to go it alone on Iran. He added that "unlike us, when the Israelis say 'never again', they mean it".

Meanwhile, here is a list of the people benefiting from the Commons vote:

• The Assad regime, said to be “cock-a-hoop” about the vote by BBC correspondent Jeremy Bowen, and who "believe it counts as a victory for them”
• The pro-Assad Putin government in Russia, still firmly laissez-faire about atrocities in Syria, who see the vote as a show of “common sense” and as undercutting President Obama’s case for action
• Any other regimes that wish to use illegally develop and use chemical weapons in future, who now understand that fewer nations will be prepared oppose their breaches of international law
• UKIP, who feel Britain should only ever use force to directly defend our own homeland. Farage triumphantly claimed that parliament had “come round to UKIP’s position” – since Labour had in fact indicated initial support for the idea of military intervention (with rightful caveats about aims, evidence and legality) and then u-turned while/after defeating Cameron, Farage isn’t really wrong in his claim
• All those more broadly who feel that injustices such as those in Syria are never our business. I am well aware this includes the overwhelming majority of my fellow Brits according to polls. But I’m also aware that 800,000 dead Rwandans have opinion polls Bill Clinton was looking at showing 63% of Americans against intervening to thank for their untimely demise - ditto for 3-400,000 in Darfur a decade later - and moments like this are therefore when I am gladdest that we are a parliamentary democracy, not a direct one. There are bound to be at least some on the left who feel both that we should’ve done more in those two conflicts and that we should continue to robustly fund foreign aid (also opposed by UKIP and much of the public), but who cited public opinion against action in Syria – I have a feeling they’ll regret the precedent they’ve just helped to set

The Labour Party is thus also vastly morally poorer. Ed Miliband pledged in his very first conference speech that he wanted a foreign policy “based on values, not just alliances”. Some see Thursday’s vote as honouring that pledge by refusing to side with the Americans or Israelis for once, which had always been the meaning of the “not just alliances” bit, but if that’s the case, I’m terrified as to what Labour’s new “values” in fact are. Personally, given Ed’s wise pre-vote stance of cautious advocacy for limited intervention – and even his more confusing post-vote argument that we should still not “wash our hands” on Syria - I’d have assumed they could be summed up by another line of that same speech:

“We do not have to accept the world as we find it. And we have a responsibility to leave our world a better place and never walk by on the other side of injustice”

However, when the time came to prove those values, he and every single Labour MP wound up somehow siding with Farage and the likes of Philip Davies, David Davis and Philip Hollobone. How deliberate this was is still not clear, but one way or another, it happened. Cameron, meanwhile, walked the walk on what should have been Labour’s position – he also gave at least some ground on Labour’s reasoned demands before the vote when he released the government’s legal advice and the JIC report stating it was  “highly likely” Assad was responsible, and then watered down the government motion. However little I agree with him on domestic outlook, it seems that on the non-EU aspects of our foreign policy – Libya, the Falklands, Gibraltar, international development and now Syria too – I still seem to be able to find at least one area where I’m occasionally proud to have Cameron as my nation’s face in the world, even if it will never be enough for me to vote for him and his ilk at the ballot box. There are plenty of things Ed rightfully attacks Cameron on – deficit reduction strategy and the economy at the top of the list – but Cameron was in no way “cavalier and reckless”, as Ed claimed after the vote. The Telegraph‘s claim that “Cameron will no longer be able to call Ed Miliband weak” holds truer, but it’s not something to be proud of in this particular instance. Nick Clegg and all but nine out of 57 Lib Dem MPs can also walk tall this week for once, along with the ever-statesmanlike Paddy Ashdown, who has said he is “ashamed” of parliament’s vote. Clegg had said he did not want "to walk on the other side of the street" on Syria, and cast his vote accordingly.

On the question of military action itself – I know it is a complex issue. The Washington Post’s Max Fisher published a good six-point pros/cons summary that tackles the implications of US-led action well.  It is true, as Patrick Cockburn also said in The Independent’s “I” on Monday, that Western military intervention would cross a Rubicon in the Syrian crisis. Inevitable concerns about mission creep and civilian casualties, plus the diplomatic fallout with Russia and Iran, are also concerns. But I cannot stress strongly enough the point that Assad himself has crossed a Rubicon, a far more important one, with the deployment of chemical weapons against civilians. The second ‘for’ point in Max Fisher’s rundown is one I would place particular emphasis on:

“2) The international norm against chemical weapons matters for more than just Syria. It matters for the rest of the world; upholding the norm now makes chemical weapons less likely to appear in the next war, or the war after that. When the next civilian or military leader locked in a difficult war looks back on what happened in Syria, we want him to conclude that using chemical weapons would not be worth the risk.”

William Hague had echoed this argument, saying “We cannot in the 21st century allow the idea that chemical weapons can be used with impunity and there are no consequences.” The above concerns are precisely why President Obama has made clear for over a year that the deployment of chemical weapons would be his ‘red line’ for military intervention. Obama was was criticised by some for the pledge, and he reportedly stunned even his own advisers wit it, but he was right to make it, as a deterrent both to Assad now and to future dictators considering the chemical option. Even if you disagree with the original pledge, the implications of not acting are severe – it will be a stain on the reputations of both the US and its allies (including us) to have made a threat in order to uphold a moral principle that is written in international law and then failed to back it up at the critical moment. Obama has also already dragged his feet in this regard; the recent Ghouta attack, while perhaps the worst and the clearest, is hardly the first in Syria, and this in turn means there has already been enough time for both sides to consider the ramifications of further uses of chemical weapons. It is now time to act.

A discussion I had with friends on Thursday before the vote did bring to my attention how muddled our point could still be if we strike only to make a point about chemical use – it perhaps implies that killing 1,500 with gas is officially worse than murdering 100,000 with conventional weapons. But as the anti-interventionists often say, we cannot do everything. What we can do in this case is at least ensure that the first clear and large-scale use of chemical weapons on civilians since Halabja in 1988 doesn’t go ignored by the world. Whether cruise missile strikes or air attacks can or should serve any purpose beyond making the point about the unacceptability of using chemical weapons, meanwhile, is at most debatable and most likely doubtful. It would take a longer and more substantial commitment if the West hopes to dislodge the Assad regime, but on this question I’m again more in agreement with the anti-intervention voices. Syria is vastly more complicated than Libya was, especially in terms of its regional and geo-political significance, and the Syrian state has proven stronger than Gadhafi’s ramshackle arrangements – it also has better air defences. Civilian causalities would mount in an extended air campaign. Further military aid to the Free Syrian Army can’t be ruled out, but this too is controversial given the worrying nature of some elements of the FSA and the oft-cited precedent of Afghan Mujahideen in the 80s.

At this stage, it looks like a rare alliance of only the US and the French, without Britain, may well still launch such a strike in Syria, despite the additional pressure that parliament has now also placed on Presidents Obama and Hollande. If so, we should praise them both for what we too should have tried harder to do and wish their servicemen the best of luck as they potentially travel into harm’s way. Obama will be acting in the spirit of the “Doctrine of the International Community” Tony Blair laid out in Chicago at the time of Kosovo, except one part of it will this time cease to be true:

“One final word on the USA itself. You are the most powerful country in the world…It must be difficult and occasionally irritating to find yourselves the recipient of every demand, to be called upon in every crisis, to be expected always and everywhere to do what needs to be done. The cry “What’s it got to do with us” must be regularly heard on the lips of your people and be the staple of many a politician running for office. Yet just as with the parable of the individuals and the talents, so those nations which have the power, have the responsibility. We need you engaged…I say to you: never fall again for the doctrine of isolationism. The world cannot afford it. Stay a country, outward-looking, with the vision and imagination that is in your nature. And realise that in Britain you have a friend and an ally that will stand with you, work with you, fashion with you the design of a future built on peace and prosperity for all, which is the only dream that makes humanity worth preserving”

John Kerry yesterday called France America’s “oldest ally”, which some took as a sign of the erosion of the UK-US special relationship Thursday’s vote has already caused. Russia’s objections at the Security Council will prevent the Franco-American alliance from having formal UN backing, but some experts seem confident that international law will still justify action. Lacking such expertise, I can’t fully comment, but I know that basic morality certainly supports it.