David Cameron says we should fight Islamic State. Jeremy Corbyn says we should talk to them. They are both partly right – we need to fight and talk. Each is necessary but not sufficient. If it is really our intent to “degrade and destroy” Isis, then we need both a military and a political strategy.
Bombing is necessary. It can help stop Isis advancing, and it was crucial in allowing Kurdish fighters to retake Sinjar and hold on in Kobani. And it makes no sense whatever to bomb Isis on the Iraqi side of the border, but not the Syrian side. If the difference is supposed to be that we have the permission of the government in Iraq but not in Syria, that is a joke. I haven’t noticed Bashar al-Assad objecting to Russian and French bombing. And if the argument is that Isis will attack us here because we start bombing them in Syria, but not because we’ve already been bombing them in Iraq for a year, then that is absurd.
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