210. Is the Middle East sliding into a wider regional conflict?

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0:49Welcome to the Restus Politics with me, Anastakambo and Mi Rory Stewart. We've got a lot to get through today, Rory. Middle East, Yemen, the air strikes against the Houthis, whether they're going to be more. I think we're on the 100th day of the Israel Guards of War. I think we should talk both about the levels of starvation, big report last week and also this case between Israel and South Africa, the International Court. I guess is this conflict now going to spread, which has been the worry from the start. Taiwan in election year, we've just had one of the big ones, Taiwan, we're the incumbent one.

1:26And then I think we should more domestically post office scandal is still a massive talking point in our politics. And a lot of polls around at the moment and a lot of them about what implications there are for the conservatives of reform and in particular whether Nigel Farage comes back as a kind of central political figure. So shall we kick off in Yemen, kick off with the Houthis? Yeah, well, so let's try to take Yemen as a starting point. So as we discussed last week, in solidarity it seems with Hamas. And certainly in solidarity with Gaza, the Houthis who are a the dominant force in Yemen began to launch attacks on ships sailing up the Red Sea towards the Suez Canal and Israel.

2:17And they mounted some relatively successful attacks and initially there were responses from the US Navy and the British Navy against the Houthis ships. So they sunk three ships and then they shot down some missiles. And then over the weekend, there were strikes against the land. So they struck Houthi installations on land, they struck air strips in the middle of the night. They took out missile facilities. The reason, of course, that this is big news is that this is the beginning or feels like the beginning of the conflict becoming more international. So very quick explainer on Yemen. Yemen is a rectangle of territory right down at the bottom of the Arab Peninsula.

3:01Let's go the Red Sea on its left. It's a very ancient country. It's a place famous in the ancient world because people believe the queen of Shiba came from there. A place that produced frankincense, for example. It's a very large population, 32 million people. So compared to places like UAE which have no Qatar, which have tiny populations. Yemen's a big populated place. But it has found itself in conflict for decade after decade. And older listeners will remember that Yemen was originally divided up until 1990 relatively recently between North Yemen and South Yemen. So South Yemen was a British colony arranged around a port city called Aden, which was very important part of the British Empire because it's where they put coal into ships on their way to India.

3:44Reunified in 1990 after a lot of fighting and brought into a precedent to stay in place until the Arab Spring. And in 2012, the sort of general fall out of the Arab Spring, which famously happened to Indonesia, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, also happened in Yemen, was toppled. I was actually there where a lot of this was happening, visiting the British Embassy and saw the first really big drives of this Houthi group down from northern Yemen towards Sana 'a, which they finally captured in 2014. The Houthi just to remind people are a group who, unlike their opponents, are followers of a particular branch of Shia Islam, which makes them closer to the Iranians who are also dominated by Shia Muslims.

4:30There are other Muslims, of course, in both countries. And receive funding from them and have been both very successful in taking Yemen. So they captured most of Yemen driving the old government down to Aden in the south. And have also launched attacks from Yemen against Saudi Arabia and UAE. And that's partly in response to the fact that from 2015 onwards, the Saudis and the Emirates intervened, did these massive bombardments, tens of thousands of people killed, hundreds of thousands of people driven to the edge of starvation, finding millions of people displaced in an intervention with the US and the UK giving weapons to Saudi Arabia, has it got involved.

5:10That went nowhere. Saudi Arabia was unsuccessful in its attempt to fight the Houthis into submission. And there was a ceasefire that was developed in April of last year. It's a tragic country in which it's suffered immeasurably. I mean, it's a place like Afghanistan with the most horrible suffering going all the way back to the Cold War, now being drawn again into conflict. Well, the other thing that I think is worth saying in relation to what's happening now. So US led Britain involved, Netherlands involved, Australia involved, Bahrain involved, but essentially mainly American with some support in the UK in these air strikes and limited, targeted, they've explained where they've hit, but it's worth remembering that the Saudis have been bombing since 2015 and have they had a real impact on the capacity of the Houthis hard to say, but they certainly haven't destroyed them.

6:07So it's hard to imagine how this limited one -off, well, it's gone on for several days. Are we going to get drawn into a position where, for example, Israel is in relation to Hamas now? Whereas they signal that they're demolishing their capacity to mount the sort of attacks that have been done on these ships going through the Red Sea, but actually the Houthis have the capacity to keep going. And then what happens if they do keep going? Do the Americans of the Brits then have to do this again and again and again? And does that lead to the escalation that the Americans have been saying they've been trying to avoid?

6:44Well, a lot of this depends on Iran. So Iran fundamentally provide a lot of the supplies for the Houthis. A lot of those missiles, a lot of the drones come in from Iran. There will be members of the Iranian Revolution regard on the ground, providing day -to -day guidance a bit in the way that Pakistan would have supported the Taliban in a very similar way. The question, of course, is does Iran want to escalate this conflict? Are they going to be content with having fired some missiles demonstrated their teeth showed that they can shut down the Red Sea trade? They've diverted more than 2000 ships, I think, now around the Horn of Africa away from the Suez Canal.

7:22Which, by the way, we often talk about why foreign policy matters to the domestic debate. That's going to have an impact upon prices, upon inflation. You're talking about a massive additional cost. And some of the companies, by the way, that are making that journey now, BP, may ask one of the biggest shipping companies in the world, they're now no longer using it. Not necessarily all of them, but there are ships that are going around the Cape of Good Hope, rather than through the Baal Mandab straight, because they fear the force that could be put against them. So that's going to have a cost. Yes, and it's a sort of, it's a weird throwback, isn't it, to a world where geography really matters, where these straits are vital.

8:06And it's sometimes it sounds a bit like once back in the 19th century of Nelson's Navy trying to dominate certain straits and how do they take out certain guns. But of course, that the big difference today is that these attacks can be launched not just from vessels in the sea, but from long -range missiles, which can fire from very far in that. So I think you're right. I don't think that these strikes, and they're very expensive strikes, those Tomahawk missiles come in at tens of millions of dollars a pack. So, you know, probably hundreds of millions of dollars worth the Tomahawk missiles. Some people suggest a very substantial proportion of actually the the Tomahawk missiles that the US Navy has have been fired in a couple of days.

8:45But the likelihood is that it's certainly not going to topple the Houthi, they're going to remain in control of that part of Yemen. So what's interesting to you too about Sana, the scenes on the streets of Sana, the day after these strikes, massive mobilization of public opinion. Now they can do that, but it was like, you know, you were talking hundreds of thousands of people who were out there. They are well armed. I don't think we should pretend that this is some kind of, you know, ragged rebel force because the Iranians have been giving them anti -ship missiles, ballistic missiles, some of which have already been fired in Israel, attack drones.

9:20This is not going to be met by short -term military actions. So I'm assuming the short -term military action is a way of signaling. We can do this and we will do this unless you stop these attacks on civilian shipping. Yeah. And in a sense of, you know, people like in the British press, people like Matthew Paris, who was a bit critic of Iraq and Afghanistan, has come out in favor of what's happening because he's saying it's sort of unimaginable that you wouldn't respond. It would be very, very odd. Yeah. If you had major international shipping lines taken down and the US and British Navy wouldn't respond.

9:57And it's managed, you know, partly by hitting the middle of the night and hitting these quite targeted sites. It's managed to do so with that huge civilian casualties. Where are you on the parliamentary vote issue? So when we, I guess this goes back to Iraq, that there was a vote in parliament, then Syria didn't happen because there was a vote in parliament that went against. Kirsta Amar has supported Rishi Sunak in the government in saying that this didn't require a prior action vote as it were because it was a specific targeted operation. And now there will be a statement and no debate in parliament.

10:31But do you think we're moving away from the idea that specific military action should only happen on the back of a parliamentary vote? Yes. I think we are partly because as you say, people will remember that Obama put that red line in place of chemical weapons we use in Syria. Cameron wanted to come along with him and launch a UK bombing campaign in retaliation. Ed Miliband, a Labour Party particularly, rebelled against that and parliament voted down the Syria strikes. And that then led not just to UK not getting involved, led to the US not getting involved. And some people would argue that that was one of the really big beginning problems of the collapse of the whole international order.

11:10You know, that it wasn't holding these red lines. So I think ever since then, people have been very concerned about this question about whether parliament does or does not have a constitutional ability to intervene in those early days. I would argue that there is a difference between strikes like this, firing some missiles where you need to keep an element of surprise and you need to act quickly. I think that's different from a full ground invasion. I think if you're actually launching something that feels more like a major war, you probably in the modern world do need parliament to agree. And I think all the significance of this one, I think you said on the last that when we discussed the youth, these a few weeks ago, around 15 % of sea -borne trade goes through the Red Sea.

11:54You're talking about a major, major shipping route. I guess the what the Americans and the Brits and the others are trying to signal here is that link across to people's standards of living and so forth. So they're trying to say the Americans are trying to say this is not a direct consequence. This is not directly related to Israel -Garza. But of course the Houthis want us to believe that in fact it is that this is happening because their action was that they would say a direct response to what's happening in Israel -Garza. So what do you think we should think of the implications and the read across on that?

12:32Well, it's 100 % motivated by Israel -Garza. I mean the Houthi are doing this to show solidarity for for Gaza. And one of the reasons there will be hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating the streets in favor of it is that there is a sense amongst many Arabs that their countries are not doing anything to respond to Israel's attacks in Gaza. So there's a huge sympathy for the population of Gaza throughout the Middle East. I think people are maybe underestimating this. I think I've mentioned this before, but in Jordan people I know are all boycotting Starbucks to show that anger at the United States for its support of Israel.

13:08If I look at my WhatsApp's and social media, most of my Arab friends think about nothing else and are increasingly angry not just with Israel but with the US and the UK for backing Israel and also with our governments. We're not doing anything. So obviously these ships don't just pass Yemen. They come right up the coast of Saudi and then a little bit of Jordan. So I think a lot of our voters or citizens will be thinking, well at least the Houthis are doing something about this. And it's the first example I guess the Arab street has had of states striking back. Now I mentioned Iran. I think there are two other things very quickly on that.

13:47Will Iran want to now back off? And secondly, how much control really in the end can Iran exercise over the Houthis? So what we discovered with Pakistan and the Taliban and a lot of these groups is that state actors are very good at funding pseudo terrorist groups and helping them take over. But often when push comes to shove, when they try to restrain them, it turns out that they have less influence than you'd think. And actually this is something that connects also to the way that people think about US and Israel. I mean, yes of course the US provides a lot of weapons to Israel but is the US really able to restrain Israel in the way that critics think?

14:24Yeah, I suppose with the Houthis and Same goes for Hasbola, they're often described as proxies, but proxies suggest control. Their allies aren't, I mean they are part of, they call themselves as this axis of resistance, but they do it using similar support and similar methods, but they also have their own agenda. So I think Iran maybe feels it has less control than we sometimes have given credit for. Yeah, and of course there is a sense that you have a financial incentive because it's where a lot of your money comes from. But what happened with the Taliban and Pakistan is once they got into power, they very quickly realized that they didn't really have to do what they were told by Pakistan.

15:07It was true with Bangladesh and India. So we talked about this last week that India basically won the war that got Bangladesh independence and assumed that thereafter, Bangladesh would be very different towards India and that didn't happen. So I think it's possible that the Iranians may be urging restraint but there might come a time where their ability to control the Houthi and Isbola decreases and that'll make things even more dangerous. Now two other things that happened last week in relation to the Middle East. The first was this South African genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and that is where the leading United Nations Court in the Hague.

15:47So you had two fairly dramatic days. First day one, South Africa setting out why it believed that what Israel was doing was conducting an act of genocide which is essentially to deliberately inflict conditions of life, calculated to bring about the physical destruction in whole or part of national ethnic, racial or religious group. So that was the case being put against Israel and then Israel defending itself. And now what happens is that the court has to decide whether there is a basic case and then they're going to take it is said several years to decide whether or not this is actually genocide.

16:32So assuming they think that there is at least an argument to be had, they can then say whether Israel should stop doing what it's doing. Israel has already said that they're not going to do that and then they will take several years. But the point is that there's politics attached to this as well because of course South Africa as a you know a long history of support for Palestine, Mandela and Nelson was close to Yes Arifat, leader of the PLO. He actually said when he was first released from prison and then when he was elected president, he actually stayed in terms our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.

17:13There is that sense of their sort of as it were freedom fighters together. South Africa, the South African government at the moment, they're also facing elections this year much less popular than they were under the time of Mandela. Perhaps using their own domestic political reasons as well. So that's the first thing going and that is a say is going to go in and take some time to resolve. Just very quickly on that one. So again it's a bit confusing because there are two courts that we often talk about. One of them is the ICC, the International Criminal Court which was set up in the 90s and that goes after individuals it has prosecuted people like President Putin or Omar Al -Bashir in Sudan where you try to hold an individual accountable for things like genocide.

17:58And the ICJ which you're talking about which was set up in the 1940s and which had a predecessor going all the way back to the League of Nations. So kind of 100 years of this which is about states, it's not about individuals which has also ruled on, well it's, has ruled on things like maritime boundaries as well as genocide and it's very fundamental to the international system because you can't really have international law unless you've got an international court but as I think you've been saying one of the problems is even when it makes a ruling and as you said takes long how do you actually enforce it?

18:32This will be very very difficult to enforce because what what the South Africans and those who are hoping that the court indicates support for that basic case what they're hoping for is that in the interim in the early judgment that they make about the long term judgment that they will then go on to make that there is enough in there to build if you like political capital on the back of it. And I just just quickly there's sort of two separate things under the seal sort of ruling which could take four, five years and then this interim sort of provisional measures which could come in sort of what fortweight weeks or something.

19:05Exactly that could come in relatively short time. The other thing which I think was I thought would have got more debate than it did last week was a report by the UN backed integrated food security phase classification which is called the IPC and this I thought was pretty remarkable about the level of starvation that's now going on. So we now have there are currently across the world just short of three quarters of million people who are experiencing what the IPC define as catastrophic or famine levels of hunger. Okay. Palestinians in Gaza now make up 80 % of that number according to the UN World Food Program and it's operating according to this the IPC system has these what they call five phases.

19:54Phase one is minimal or in sense you know people are basically got enough food. Phase two is stressed which is where it's starting to become inadequate. Phase three is crisis where people are missing meals and adults are giving up meals for children. Phase four is emergency and phase five is catastrophe and according to the IPC the entire population in Gaza 2 .2 million people is now between phase three or above and of those 50 % are in phase four that's emergency and one in four households that's more than half a million people are facing what they call phase five which is catastrophe. So that is a level of famine a potential famine allied to the breakdown of healthcare systems and potential spread of disease which the UN World Food Programme is saying the world we are not taking remotely seriously enough.

20:56And so it's another example of the ways in which what's happening in Gaza is really testing all the things that kept the international system together. So those different standards on food insecurity and famine are absolutely vital to the way that the world thinks about these things when I was at the different section of state these triggered a lot of our humanitarian aid all over the world. So these things happen in Sudan or Somalia or Yemen. And the problem that we're facing now is that supporters of what Israel are doing in Gaza hearing this now think that all of this is politically motivated.

21:34So they will think that your talk about famine is politically motivated they will say that the rulings of the international court justice are politically motivated and you're guessing big powerful voice in the US taking Israel's sidelines the US said you know this case is meritless counterproductive completely without basis. David Cameron said the same yesterday right here we think he had to sort of study more subdued and he said it was not helpful or something I think at one point he said it was nonsense. And Germany also have said that this shouldn't be going ahead. So it is really problematic because we often talk about the ways that over the last 10 years the world is getting more violent more unstable.

22:14But these institutions it's kind of UN institutions in international court and and also things like the world food programs measurements on famine are what we have to try to have some kind of international agreement and peace and the international court is a very impressive body and it's got 15 judges who are generally highly respected from their in individual countries. This is the court that ruled for example on Myanmar. So case was brought by Gambia against Myanmar in the ICJ very similar to what we're now experiencing. The South African cases very very strongly dependent on some of the statements that have been made by Israeli government officials and others over time.

22:56And it's very interesting because obviously the British press is focusing on this. It's also focusing on comments from Palestinians or Palestinian supporters that the Times newspaper for example will say are pseudo genocidal. It's pretty terrifying though some of the statements that South Africa has brought forward as part of its case. So the mid -general Gassan Allianne human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water and gas that will be only destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell. Nisimvatori deputy speaks Israeli parliament. Burned Gaza now. Nothing less.

23:35The minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage is the man who said we've discussed this before the dropping nuclear weapon on the Gaza Strip is an option and added there are no non -combatants in Gaza. There are no innocents there. Israel Defence Minister U of Garland, we're fighting human animals and we must act accordingly. And you know, you can go on. I'm in Ben Gavir who we've again talked about has said absolutely astonishing things. A number of people have talked about, you know, we don't want to call them animals because that would be too flattering to them. Against that Israel has put forward many many statements by ministers and others saying that this is not directed against Palestinian people.

24:13This was just directed against Hamas. But the likelihood is that these judges will make a provisional finding against Israel. Why do you say that? Here I'm just quoting lawyers and others who've worked at the ICJA who are looking at the type of evidence that's been produced. They think that there's enough there to say that there is a case to answer and probably enough for the court to request Israel to bring a cease fire. I mentioned earlier about genocide defined as committee one or more acts with the intention to etc etc etc. If you break it then down a little bit. Killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group deliberately inflicted on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in horror in part.

25:00Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, forcibly transferring children to the group to another group. So these are all, you know, it'd be very hard. I would think to find evidence. Yes, you can get a few sort of statements from some of the more right -wing politicians and commentators. But in a sense what they have to prove is that this has been the intent of the Israeli government to do these kind of things. And even Israel's a lot of Israel's critics will say Israel has the right to defend themselves. The question then becomes though, do in the pursuit of defending themselves, do they have the right to starve an entire population and can the South Africans and those who are trying to make this case make the case that there has been a program of deliberate starvation, deliberate acts denial of access to water to medication.

25:50And as he said, it's all about intent, isn't it? It's all about intent. Exactly. Which is why when you see the Israelis, the spokesman pressed on this, they will always say that we make every effort to avoid civilian death. We make every effort to ensure that the civilian population is fed water, etc. Now, so then it becomes a judgment about whether that's real. But I think proving intent on some of this stuff is pretty difficult. Yeah. Well, I mean, in the Myanmar case, again, they issued a provisional finding. And again, against Putin and Ukraine, provisional finding after four or eight weeks, which essentially said, please hold off any more military measures while we look at this further.

26:28And that's the sort of four or five year thing. And I think what you might see is that a provisional finding against Israel and then potentially four or five years later, a ruling that doesn't find it guilty of genocide. But my goodness, it's politicized. I mean, you will have seen all over social media people either sharing, if people are sympathetic to the Israeli position, sharing the statements of the Israeli lawyers or if they're sympathetic to the Palestinian position, sharing statements by the South African lawyers. I mean, it is really interesting also because the accusation against the International Criminal Court, the other court that we talked about, was always that it was a racist and tended to focus on cases in Africa.