British military operations in Syria: an important step forward

Amonth ago, the House of Commons foreign affairs committee agreed the conditions we believed needed to be satisfied before parliament should be asked to endorse British military operations in Syria against Islamic State. Given parliament’s refusal to support a previous request in 2013, albeit around a different objective, our analysis received unusual prominence. In the course of the next week or so the prime minister is expected to give his personal reply to make the case that those conditions are satisfied. That the prime minister is undertaking this himself shows the seriousness of the issues at stake.

At one level, this has been presented as being about the military common sense of attacking Isis across the Iraqi-Syrian border, when our enemy recognises no such border. For the committee, the issues at stake go well beyond this rather narrow military point. When the air forces of the US, Russia, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others are already engaged with Isis in Syria, it’s a shortage of targets rather than of aircraft that is the coalition’s principal military constraint. For the committee, it’s the fact that aircraft can’t occupy, hold and administer territory – thus defeat Isis – which is our principal concern. Whose ground forces would accomplish this actual defeat of Isis in Syria, by taking the territory they currently control, was, and is, one of our conditions.

For the government, there is the frustration of not being a full part of the anti-Isis coalition. For ministers to have their position restrained by our parliament is an embarrassment with their international colleagues. If in return for that temporary embarrassment we can get them to focus the minds of our international partners on what is required to actually win this conflict, then we might have achieved something much more significant.

A month ago, we did not believe the conditions we set could be met. I now do. It remains for the prime minister to demonstrate that our government is properly focused on how.

There have been dramatic changes. The key changes predate the downing of the Russian airliner and the Paris outrage. However, those massacres of the innocent have concentrated minds and put urgency and steel behind key international actors who have until now had irreconcilable positions on the future of Syria.

Russia, having by the end of September got herself practically committed to the indefinite support of Assad’s government, now needs a transition out of that commitment. Furthermore, there is now a blood price to settle with Isis, who are sustained by many Chechen fighters, who are a profound danger to Putin’s Russia. At the same time, our leaders noticeably softened their rhetoric around Assad’s immediate future. Our precondition that had prevented peace talks atGeneva 2 getting going has been quietly dropped.