History can be deceptive – Syria is not a rerun of Iraq

Like a crammer offering intensive revision classes before finals, No 10 coordinated briefings over the weekend for MPs still uncertain about the prospective vote on military intervention in Syria against Islamic State. Available for consultation were Sir Mark Lyall Grant, national security adviser; Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary; and Michael Fallon, the defence secretary.

Understandable as it is that parliamentarians should be fully briefed before they walk into the division lobbies, their vacillation and, in some cases, moral paralysis is much greater than it needs to be. It is understandable that MPs should, for instance, seek reassurances about the 70,000 Syrian opposition forces said by the British government to be ready for ground battle against Isis. But there is a deeper reticence in the Commons that exceeds the rational. This is the lingering spectre of Iraq doing its work.

That conflict and its long political prelude remain the prism through which any decisions regarding British military action are taken. The apparent inability of Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq inquiry to produce its report – already five years late – is a perfect metaphor for the war’s resilient grip on the political class, and the Labour party in particular.