Welby warns against ‘rushing to judgment’ over Syria intervention

John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor
28/8/13

The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned against “rushing to judgment” over military action in Syria insisting that it could have “unforeseeable consequences” across the entire Muslim world.

The Most Rev Justin Welby insisted that MPs must ask themselves whether they are “sure” about the facts on the ground before acting amid a “really delicate and dangerous situation”.

Archbishop Welby, who spent several years promoting reconciliation in war zones in Africa and the Middle East, insisted that there were “numerous intermediate steps” between doing nothing and full regime change in Syria which could be considered.

But speaking to The Daily Telegraph, he acknowledged that there was no “good answer” to the crisis in Syria and that a simple solution “just doesn’t exist”.

Speaking from his own experience after touring the Middle East to meet Christian and Muslim leaders recently, he spoke of a mood of mounting fear which was “beyond description and horrible”.

There was a “tangible” sense that the region was going through a “terribly, terribly dangerous time”, he added.

The Archbishop emphasised that he detected no sense that politicians were “slavering” to “unleash the dogs of war”.

But he urged them to bear in mind the “inter-linkedness of everything that happens” in the Middle East and the risk of actions in one area having serious consequences far away.

He said: “The things which MPs will have to bear in mind in what is going to be a very, very difficult debate is firstly: are we sure about the facts on the ground?

“Secondly: Is it possible to have a carefully calibrated response including armed force, if you are sure about the facts on the ground, that does not have unforeseeable ramifications across the whole Arab and Muslim world?”

Acknowledging that people outside the Government, including himself, “really do not know” what the true situation is, he added: “The Government and the Americans are seeing intelligence nobody else sees – I just think we have to be very careful about rushing to judgment.”

He went on: “I am extremely conscious of my own lack of knowledge having spent a lot of time in the area over the years very much in the reconciliation area, so dealing with the people involved in these things.

“I am deeply, deeply aware of the enormous complexity and inter-linkedness of everything that happens there.”

But he added: “[The Government] know better than I do certainly that everything there is linked to everything else.

“You do something in one area and it has an impact far away in a most serious way and

they know that. … There are no generalisations you can make in the Middle East apart from the fact that there are no generalisations you can make.”

He went on to describe the mood of mounting fear among Christians across the region.

“I have had a lot of conversations with people in the region I think the overwhelming sense is of a really moving and terrible sense of fear about what might come out of, what might be happening in the next few weeks – not predicated on people doing one thing or people doing another just a sense that this a terribly, terribly dangerous time,” he said.

“Certainly when I was there in June and I think it has got worse since then I can scarcely remember a time of being in meetings where there was such a sense of apprehension, I mean it was tangible, this sense of ‘what will happen? What will be the impact on us?.…the impact on people not directly involved in the fighting is beyond description and horrible.”

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