The move incensed Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron at the time, dealing him a rare defeat and deeply complicating the U.S. Obama administration’s plan to respond to the attacks.
Obama officials openly cited the U.K. vote in justifying the then-president’s failure to enforce a “red line” on Syrian chemical weapons use.
Miliband, now energy secretary in Keir Starmer’s Labour government, was again pressed on the decision by Times Radio Friday.
Asked if he regretted the move to oppose military action, Miliband said: “No. First of all, I very much welcome the fall of President Assad, who is a brutal dictator.”
He added: “The decision I was confronted with, though, in 2013 was whether we did a bombing of President Assad without any clear plan for British military engagement, where it would lead and what it would mean.
“And I believe then, and I do now, that one of the most important lessons of the Iraq war is we shouldn’t go into military intervention without a clear plan, including an exit strategy.”
