Fallujah, 2007. Flickr/ Arlo Ringsmuth. Some rights reserved.The British Prime Minister presented his case in parliament today (26 November, 2015) for launching attacks against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/Islamic State in Syria. Two years ago, a similar request was unexpectedly defeated in the House of Commons and David Cameron has said he will not put it to a vote again unless he is ‘confident of enough votes to win’.
The 36-page memorandum which outlines the Prime Minister’s case for war starts by acknowledging that the decision to use force is “not to be taken lightly” and is “one of the most significant decisions that any government takes”. Many pages are then devoted to the threat posed by ISIL and the need to defeat it. Yet nowhere does it explain how dropping more bombs on them will lessen or eliminate this threat. In fact, Cameron himself freely admits in the conclusion of the memorandum that “air strikes alone cannot defeat ISIL”. In purely military terms, the only way to uproot ISIL from its strongholds in Syria is by chasing them out with ground forces, and David Cameron knows that very well.
This is where the miraculous 70,000 “fighters who do not belong to extremist groups” comes into the picture. Many Syrian analysts have expressed surprise and even astonishment at this number, since most assume the ‘moderate’ military opposition to Assad is much smaller as well as divided against itself and largely ineffectual except in a few small areas currently under their control.
