It’s time to toughen up and learn to fight dirty

We woke yesterday morning to another set of horrific images from Syria. They are no more horrific than ones we have seen in the past, and doubtless will again. That is unless, of course, we at least countenance trying to end the horrific slaughter that is a modern Syria.

Options to intervene in Syria are today almost zero. Until now, I have said that missing the opportunity to intervene that was brought to the House of Commons by David Cameron in 2013 would prove to be the foreign policy mistake of the decade. I now fear it will prove greater than that. Obama saw our stomach; he didn’t like it. Assad, Putin and their cowardly types have never looked back.

It has been depressing to watch. “All that is necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to stand aside and do nothing,” we repeat ad nauseam, while doing nothing.

I say nothing – that is not entirely true. UK Special Forces have made a brave and important contribution to the fight, alongside some French and US counterparts, seen all too clearly in the death of Matt Tonroe last week.

But the real game-changing political action – the relentless pursuit of Assad, his chemical weapons and his cronies – has been limited to say the least, and the results borne yet again by the children of Douma, Eastern Ghouta.

We have reached such a fetid low post-iraq that there is now an expectation that any foreign action will go through a vote in Parliament. This is a uniquely useless way of conducting foreign policy, and emasculates us on the world stage.

We elect a government and then a prime minister, cognisant of all the intelligence, risks and balances to take these decisions. It is a cop-out to go to Parliament, as if our leaders haven’t the courage to take the decisions themselves. It’s not their fault either

– I know them personally, and they do. But the nation’s politics have become so sickeningly pious since Iraq, that agenda-driven politicians calling the score about warfighting and the character of conflict have become the accepted normal. Urgent questions follow the killing of British jihadists hell-bent on mass-distraction in the UK. Meanwhile, our servicemen and women look on, generally bemused.

Options are almost zero, but not quite. Every individual involved in the chemical weapons decision-making cycle should be targeted (not always with violence). The bases they launch from should be levelled.

If warfare is changing, then we damn well change with it. We don’t shy away from cyber warfare because it’s “un-british”. We don’t shy away from targeting individuals with drones in their beds, because the political risk is too high. We’ve almost lost the ability to advocate – to get out there and tell the British people what modern warfare is about. Why we have to target people with missiles; why we have to get our hands dirty and stand up to Russian aggression. Why we have to spend money in different ways and engage in conflicts that are fundamentally different in manner and definitions of “success” than the binary conflicts of the past.

Johnny Mercer is Conservative MP for Plymouth Moor View