No time to waste in the fight against Isil

For some time, Britain’s strategy against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) has been half-hearted. The UK has struck enemy targets in Iraq but not in the Levant. Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, says that this is illogical and urges an extension of UK military action to Syria. If this is to happen, however, other problems in the Western effort against Isil need to be addressed. The UK has to be part of an international coalition committed to getting the job done. It also needs to make it clear exactly what the job is.

Much has changed since Parliament voted against UK military action in Syria back in 2013. Then David Cameron made the case for a “humanitarian” military response to the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime. The motion was defeated for many reasons: Labour’s opportunism, the Government’s failure to make its case and the feeling that Britain might be creeping by inches into another Iraq-style invasion.

Two years later and Bashar al-Assad has clung on but the radical Islamists within the opposition have flourished. They have swept across Iraq and exploited turmoil in Libya to extend their influence even to the Mediterranean. Mr Cameron has to explain to the British people how these points of conflict link up and – added to the radicalisation of European youth – form what he has described as an “existential threat” to the Western way of life. The massacre of British tourists in Tunisia illustrates horribly the West’s vulnerability and the risks of allowing Arab states to collapse.

There is a coalition of the willing among those states to take on Isil. Yet Barack Obama has clipped its wings. This newspaper has revealed that the US has blocked attempts by its Middle East allies to fly heavy weapons directly to the Kurds. There is, complain the allies, a lack of clear purpose in the American bombing campaign and the US has vetoed strikes on Isil targets. President Obama’s foreign policy has always been vacillating, uncertain. In his quest to be as different from George W Bush as possible, he has largely stood by while the Middle East descended into chaos.

Britain will have to persuade America to give its Arab allies appropriate support. The UK and US should also put pressure on Turkey to take greater responsibility for the regional crisis. At the very least it must secure its borders against the free movement of guns and volunteers. Turning a blind eye to such things is patently wrong.

If a strong coalition against Isil can be constructed, what will its aims be? Isil’s destruction will be difficult: it is a fast-moving guerrilla army kept alive by ideas as much as weaponry. If it is driven from Syria, what does the West propose to do about Bashar al-Assad? Or the Sunni radicalism exploited by Isil? This conflict does present military targets. But it also represents the collapse of nation states and the emergence of a politicised Islam that will be hard to control.

The spread of Isil across the region since the 2013 parliamentary vote proves just how febrile things are. The Government appears to believe that it needs to wait for Labour to elect a leader before a serious debate can go ahead. It wants to build a consensus for its action, which is wise, although there is probably no need to wait for Labour to pull itself together after a leadership campaign that has barely mentioned foreign policy. If there must be a wait, then the Government should use it to make its moral case for action – and to convince the public that there is a strategic vision behind it.