There’s an alternative to missiles, Mrs May

IN all but the most exceptional circumstances – of which the disaster of the Iraq war was the most glaring example – this paper has always believed strongly in supporting our American allies. In common with decent people everywhere, we also hold chemical warfare to be abhorrent.

True, parents may feel the same grief whether their children are blown up by cluster bombs or killed by poison gas.

But last week’s atrocity in Douma was a crime against humanity. It is unthinkable that cheap-to-produce chemical weapons should be tolerated – and the Mail backs all effective means of preventing their spread.

Indeed, if it were clear that the planned US-led attacks on Syria offered the best way of achieving that end, this paper would have no hesitation in supporting them. Bashar Al Assad and his Russian accomplices need to learn that the civilised world will not stand for such barbarity.

Yet that said, the Mail still feels distinctly uneasy about Theresa May’s apparent readiness to commit British forces to supporting Donald Trump’s response.

Yes, we respect the Prime Minister’s sense of moral repugnance. It is also true that, at this stage, the extent of the military backing she contemplates is unclear.

Indeed, there may be a case for offering some form of support to America, in pursuit of a clearly-defined and achievable objective. But that case has not been made yet.

Nor has the case for justifying the Prime Minister’s apparent willingness to intervene in a conflict that doesn’t affect this country without involving Parliament.

If she is to do this, she must convince Britain we are not on the brink of repeating Tony Blair’s calamitous mistake in Iraq.

If anything, the stakes today are even higher. Leave aside the risk that allied air attacks may merely increase the body count in Syria without achieving tangible benefits (indeed, Mr Trump’s missile strike last year signally failed to teach Assad his lesson).

The danger is that Western intervention may not only prolong this bitterly cruel war, in which the anti-Assad forces include factions that hate the West. With Russia threatening retaliation, one missile offtarget could see the conflict escalating into something beyond anyone’s control.

Is this an outcome Mrs May is prepared to contemplate without recalling Parliament (and why on earth can’t that be done in the next couple of days, especially as MPs return on Monday anyway)?

Doesn’t she risk raising suspicions that she fears the Commons may not back her?

Whatever the truth, this paper believes there is another way the West could signal its abhorrence of Russia’s complicity in Assad’s chemical warfare.

A cheap shot it may be, but isn’t there a moral ambiguity here? How strange that politicians are so quick to propose lethal missile strikes – while they were loath to back the Mail’s call for a boycott of this summer’s World Cup in Russia (which would damage Vladimir Putin far more than any military intervention in Syria).

It’s a mad old world in which lives are regarded as expendable in the fight against chemical warfare – but a football competition is sacrosanct.