War is not a matter for half measures, to succeed you have to confront the enemy and defeat him in every theatre. We are now at war with Daesh, a wicked and repulsive terrorist organisation whose speciality is in designing ever more grizzly ways to kill people.
Rather oddly however, we are only prepared to use lethal force against it in Iraq. We are giving recognition to a land border with Syria which our enemy entirely ignores. What is more, our allies in the region ignore it too. This is even more perverse when you consider that our enemy’s strength, and his greatest danger to us – and to all humanity, is largely concentrated in within Syria.
We enjoy the support of the Government of Iraq for our operations there. We do not have the permission of the Syrian Government (although that hasn’t troubled our allies). The writ of that government however, no longer runs in most of its territory, rather it is Daesh, that largely occupies the land.
Were we to extend our air operations into Syria would we place ourselves in greater danger of terrorist attack?
This question might have had some purchase had we maintained our neutrality, but we are already at war – even if only in Iraq; It is time to grasp the nettle…and uproot the weed in Syria.