Peter Ford (diplomat)

Peter Ford (born 27 June 1947) is a retired British diplomat who was ambassador to Bahrain from 1999–2003 and to Syria from 2003–2006.^[1][2] Since 2010 he has become known to a wider public for his critical stance towards British policy towards Syria.

Life

Ford was educated at Weston Point Community Primary School, Helsby Grammar School and The Queen's College, Oxford.^[3]

Having finished his Arabic studies he worked in Beirut, Riyadh, Paris and Cairo before being appointed British ambassador to Bahrain as well as Syria from 2003-06.^[4]

Retiring from the Diplomatic Service in 2006 he became Representative of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA in the Arab world.^[5]

Positions

In 2003, as ambassador to Bahrain, Ford says he sent critical memos to London before the Iraq War. Later he regretted not to have been more outspoken. In his time in Damascus (2003-2006), he says he distanced himself more and more from the official policies.^[6]

After 2006, he has been criticised as a defender of the Assad regime in Syria. In 2016, he suggested opposition forces were responsible for an attack on a UN humanitarian convoy in September 2016 which led to the deaths of 10 humanitarians. A UN panel of inquiry said the attack was conducted from the air, and only Syrian and Russian air forces were operating in the area. The UN panel stated "that it did not have evidence to conclude that the incident was a deliberate attack on a humanitarian target".^[7][8]

Looking back on the British policy towards Syria since 2011 he accused the government of lies and political mistakes from the very beginning, thus aggravating the situation in Syria. He argued that Prime Minister David Cameron should have either committed British forces or refrained from encouraging opposition forces from mounting a doomed campaign causing many civilian deaths.^[8] The government had misunderstood and misrepresented the situation. First, they had expected an early end of Assad's regime. After that they had overestimated the strength of the moderate opposition. Instead of taking action in order to help the opposition, they had only instigated the Syrian opposition with to continue on their way to disaster. This outcome "was eminently foreseeable to anyone who was not intoxicated with wishful thinking", he said.^[8][9]

He accused David Cameron's policy of deposing Assad as the opening of a "Pandora's box". He warned of repeating the mistakes of Libya and Iraq. In his opinion, the fall of the Assad regime would lead to the massacres of Christians, Shias, Alawites, Druze and other minorities.^[10]

In February 2017 Ford became a Director of the British Syrian Society, alongside President Assad's father-in-law Dr Fawaz Akhras.^[11]

Subsequently, on the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, he commented to the BBC that "there [had] been no investigation.. not a dodgy dossier - we've not seen any dossier whatever this time".^[12] Ford called to mind instances of false evidence during the war of Iraq.^[13][14]

Ford participated in the EuroCE conference on the future of Syria from 5 to 6 April 2017 which was criticised by dissidents as pro-Assad, because among the speakers there were Syrian politicians and apologists of the Assad government.^[15] At the conference Ford described the British policy as "incoherent and grotesque", he blamed the government to be among those in the front rank of destroying Syria. "It's very coy about the nature and extent of its support for armed groups. It declines to say how much it's giving or what groups are receiving it, on the grounds that this will help Assad. The government takes us for fools because parliament has no opposition and the media for the most part is gullible." He urged, Britain should stop making it worse by supporting armed groups and encouraging the illusion they could force Assad to go. "This is unkind to the Syrian opposition themselves. Any fool can see that this is not going to happen, especially after Aleppo."^[16]

References