Tomorrow it seems David Cameron will set out his case for bombing Syria. He’ll do it in the form of answering questions the Foreign Affairs Select Committee posed and then MPs will assess his ‘plan’.
Meanwhile his party whips will try to calculate if he will have a majority so that he can win a vote in the House of Commons.
Remember Cameron’s government has a majority of only twelve. With up to thirty of his own Conservative MPs opposed, the SNP and Lib Dems unconvinced, and an unknown number of Labour MPs against as well, our local lot come into play. It’s fun listening to them.
The unionists sound gung-ho this time though in 2013 the DUP and SDLP voted against. On that occasion Depooty Dawds said: "It [bombing Syria] could make things a lot worse. More people could die.''
How’s it different this time? Maybe he thinks the RAF will be using dummy bombs?
Unionist MPs’ grasp of the detail isn’t impressive. One genius, asked on the radio what he thought of last Friday’s UN resolution said he’d need to read it. He might need someone to explain it as well.
Even so, most of them consider themselves military experts as a result of years of being spear-holders up country lanes in the UDR. So far, despite this expertise none of them has addressed any of the questions the Select Committee has asked.
For example, how would bombing improve the chances of success of the international coalition’s campaign against ISIS? On a good day with a following wind Britain is likely to contribute six ancient jets to the fray.
The Americans have been flying thousands of bombing missions for 450 days and have not made a blind bit of difference except when they enabled the Kurds to take Kobani back from ISIS. Except that US bombs destroyed 70 per cent of the town and what the Kurds took back according to the Independent’s Patrick Cockburn was mostly pulverised concrete. What the Americans didn’t obliterate ISIS pulled to bits before they left.
The Royal United Services Institute says the bombing campaign does not suffer from a shortage of bombers but rather a shortage of targets.
The Americans and Russians are now bombing the rubble of their previous raids. The French have been blattering Raqqa for the last twelve days and nights killing who knows how many civilians but not altering the course of the battle against ISIS one iota.
They can’t because without ground forces bombing will not dislodge ISIS who have changed their tactics and merged in with the civilian population as much as they can. The problem is there are no ground forces available. People forget the British have been bombing Iraq for two years and what? The British and American trained and equipped Iraqi army ran away when ISIS appeared.
Finally, will the unionist MPs who are likely to suck up to a Cameron desperate to please the clueless American government consider whether bombing Syria strengthens security in Britain and if so how? Why did bombing Syria not prevent the attacks in Paris or Ankara?
On the other hand, would bombing Syria not make it more likely Britain and maybe even Norn Irn targets? If it came to a close vote in Westminster and the DUP’s eight MPs proved decisive ISIS can count as well as anyone else.
If the DUP think a jihadi assault on a city in England or Ballymena is worth the risk then they should say so. The fact that an ISIS video warned the French, ‘As long as you keep bombing us you will not live in peace’ has been set aside. Why should the response of ISIS to a British decision to bomb Syria (and incidentally kill however many civilians no Westminster warmonger cares) be any different from their response to other bombers?
In the end Cameron knows the British contribution will make no difference. Ever the PR man he’s simply anxious to be upsides with other western countries who can’t resist trying to be in control of the Middle East. In doing so he wants to make British policy consistent.
The British started bombing Iraq in 1921 shortly after they invented it.
