Maurice Hayes (Independent)

This is one of those sad days in the House when everybody has the same end in view – concern for peace and justice and a modicum of moral certainty. The fact that we will differ from very good friends who are expressing themselves passionately on these subjects should not make us respect any the less the strength of the views they hold.

I have a sense of déjà vu in regard to this debate. My father soldiered in the First World War in what was then Mesopotamia. We grew up on tales of his journey on foot from Basra to Baghdad to Kirkuk and Mosul, but more than anything else we grew up on the enormous sense of anger that he had at the way in which the Arab peoples were betrayed by the great powers. I certainly hope it is not going to happen this time. This is the wrong war against the wrong target at the wrong time and it can have unforeseen long-term repercussions.

For most of us in liberal civilised democracies with the experience of world wars, a war is morally dubious and politically pointless. The world has still not reached that degree of perfection where war has been eliminated. We should have some regard for the shock to the American psyche and the body politic of the events of 11 September 2001, which they find very hard to forget and cannot understand why other people do not think of it too – although we do.

Last week I was in Washington and it is very interesting that I found exactly the same debate going on there. American people were not gung-ho about this. They were concerned, apprehensive and held different opinions. Since I am expressing opinions I heard from serious people in the United States, it is clearly not anti-American to question the direction American policy is taking.