Are UK Airstrikes Necessary?

I am not convinced of the need for the United Kingdom to carry out airstrikes on IS targets in Syria.

I cannot see that a few bombs dropped by us is going to either solve the Syrian civil war, or decapitate IS and stop them from being able to launch terrorist attacks in our or other western countries.

I appreciate that we have very-premise weaponry on our tornadoes but I just don’t see it making such a massive difference.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve not gone all Corbyn on you.  I can see an argument for being able to take out anyone specifically involved in the murder of British citizens, or conspiracy to murder on a large scale.  I do also wonder if the special forces could play more of a role.

But I just do not see the importance that some in government are placing on us being able to drop bombs within the Syrian borders.

That said, the internationally recognised borders of Syria are only borders on maps and not in reality.  It does seem daft that we can bomb targets in Iraq but when we get to the border that doesn’t exist any more, we cannot go after them.  There is the argument that either we should be going for IS everywhere, or we should leave it to others.

The current status quo is militarily illogical.

If I were an MP, I guess I would support my party leader on this issue, given that I have no particularly convincing opinion either way.

However, I do believe strongly that the time for military action was 4 years ago, to try to stop the slaughter of innocent people by the Syrian government…before IS blossomed into its current threat.  That would, of course, have required the kind of after-war planning and state-building which was initially conspicuous by its absence in Iraq, and dreadfully incompetent in Libya.

Is there a solution to the conflict in Syria?  Definitely.  But then again, there are also definite ways to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I’ll talk about my solution another time.