Iraq

Two experiences stand out from my recent visit to the Kurdistan Region in Iraq: meeting refugees fleeing Syria at the Domiz refugee camp; and seeing a weeping son uncovering the body of his father, Mohammed Serspi, murdered by Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980s. The first, a biblical tide of innocent humans cast out by a vicious dictator in 2013. The second is a single example from a multitude of evil which continues to wreak its effect decades on. The factor uniting these two experiences is Iraqi Kurdistan itself, whose very existence as a prosperous, free, secular place, and whose tragic history, shows just why dictators must be challenged. Whilst visiting the Domiz refugee camp, I shared David Cameron's pride in Britain's commitment to overseas aid.

Ten years ago today, Lloyd Evans joined the anti-Iraq war march in London. Evans had an open mind about the war, until he joined the peace movement and met Bianca Jagger. Here is the piece in full from our archive. I'm bursting with excitement. I can hardly get the words down fast enough. There was an amazing occurrence in Hackney last week at a meeting of the Stop the War coalition. I swear this happened. A protester said something perceptive. You don't believe me? No, really, I was there. He was an old guy with white hair and a lovely crinkly face. 'The bigger the march,' he said ruefully. 'The bigger the insult when they ignore us.' I almost fell off my chair in astonishment. Nobody at the meeting disagreed. No one suggested a change of tactics. And none of that surprised me at all.

Don't take my word for it. Ask the redoubtable Ms Penny herself. Contemplating the "lesson" of the anti-war protests a decade ago, she writes: Tony Blair’s decision to take Britain into the Americans’ war in Iraq was an immediate, material calamity for millions of people in the Middle East. I’m writing here, though, about the effect of that decision on the generation in the west who were children then and are adults now. For us, the sense of betrayal was life-changing. We had thought that millions of people making their voices heard would be enough and we were wrong. Poor lambs. Of course there were millions of people around the world - including many in Britain - who would have been disappointed if Saddam Hussein had been permitted to remain in power.

A lunchtime spat has broken out over Sergeant Danny Nightingale, the SAS serviceman who was sentenced to 18 months in prison by a court martial after pleading guilty to possession of a prohibited firearm (a 9mm Glock pistol) and ammunition. Sgt Nightingale's case has attracted wide public support. His friends and family said that the pistol, which was a ‘war gift’ from Iraqi soldiers he mentored in 2007, had not been packed by him, and added that a brain injury had made him forget that it was among his possessions. Supporters say that, owing to these facts, the sentence is unduly harsh. The government's hand has been forced. The Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, wrote to the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, asking for a review of the case.

Douglas Murray's latest post is a rum 'un indeed. He asks us to believe that Barack Obama's "foreign policy boasts" are unraveling now that the American election is usefully out the way. I must say that the evidence for this is thin, not least since it seems to rely upon 1. A reported Iranian attack on a US drone, 2. General Petraeus having an affair, 3. The existence of long-planned Congressional hearings on the Benghazi nonsense and 4. The Iraqi government's decision to release from gaol a suspected Hezbollah operative responsible for an ambush in which five American troops were killed. If this amounts to "unraveling" then I guess the President can live with it.

Few people have been more important in America’s recent wars than David Petraeus. Petraeus led the surge of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and redefined the US approach to counter-insurgency warfare. He was the most influential military figure of the post-war era and successful enough for some of those close to Obama to hold deep concerns about the prospect of Petraeus running against Obama. 14 months ago, he was put in charge of the CIA by President Obama. There he expanded Predator strikes to Yemen and pushed for a larger drone fleet. But yesterday, Petraeus resigned over an extra-marital affair with his biographer. It is a sad end to a remarkable career.

What do you do when confronted with a prejudice so strong it takes your breath away? In my case, I did what was immediately necessary. I took a deep breath to replenish lost oxygen, and moved on. It wasn't the time or place to take on this particularly ugly example of intolerance; but it is an intolerance which needs to recognised. I was giving a lecture at a charity that trains journalists from around the world. Some are already making their way in the industry and are expected to do well. I was talking about my theory that the term 'Arab Spring' actually clouds our understanding of what has been happening in the region over the past 18 months.  From the Egyptian coup d'etat onwards, I've argued that calling these events the 'Arab Spring' automatically frames them as positive.

It seems strange now to recall that, it was not so many years ago, around the time of the millennium, that some in Whitehall were talking about how to scale down Remembrance Sunday. One theory was that marking the centenaries of the start and end of the Great War could also mark an appropriate moment to bring the solemn Cenotaph ceremonials to a gentle end. The assumption was that Remembrance would gradually lose its resonance and relevance once the generations who fought the Great War had all passed on. Such thinking did also reflect the mistaken New Labour view of the Dome era: that Britain would be able to face the future more confidently if it let go of the historical baggage which could weigh us down. That is not how things turned out.