I’ll defy my party leader, and vote against Syria airstrikes

Though the government has precipitated another rush into military action, it has not yet constructed a realistic long-term strategy to destroy Daesh/Isis. On a recent visit to Middle Eastern capitals with the foreign affairs select committee, the officials we met were concerned we risk making the same mistakes as we made in our previous military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan (post-2006) and Libya.

All the previous military interventions were ill fated from the outset, because of the lack of a comprehensive plan coupled with a dearth of local knowledge and history. Initial hopes that a modicum of “nation-building” would lead to the birth of western-style democracies met their doom. On each occasion, we vastly underestimated the complexities of local politics, the difficulty of achieving our aims, and the resources we would require. Sadly, from the prime minister’s response to the foreign affairs committee’s report on Syria last week, there is little sign we have learned these painful and costly lessons.