There is an urgent need for clarity in the Syria imbroglio before the Commons takes its vote. So here is the latest SITREP.

 

The West is fighting Assad who is fighting ISIL who is fighting us, and Turkey is fighting the Kurds who are fighting ISIL, with Russia supporting Assad and our efforts against ISIL   and fighting against Chechnyans who are supporting ISIL. It seems like only yesterday that Dave was hot for bombing Assad; now he wants to bomb ISIL who is bombing Assad.

 

If the aim is to bomb ISIL back to the Stone Age, it’s too late. It is already there.

 

Now that’s clear, there is a key question to be answered before the Commons vote.

 

What vital British interests are involved?

 

Has any MP asked – Mr ‘Compo’ Corbyn for example – and if so what was the PM’s answer?

 

I think we should be told!

 

The difficulty faced by the people is that they have been down this road before. Under Saddam Iraq was stable, if brutal. George Dubya decided to bring down the only non-Islamic regime in the region. Step forward shock and awe! And what became of it at last? Complete disintegration of the state,  mass slaughter, Sunni and Shia resuming their 1000-year old war, and the infection of terrorism.

 

Then to Afghanistan to remove Al Qaeda. This took three weeks and they then decamped to Yemen and other dusty hellholes. The ‘Allies’ stayed fourteen years fighting the Taliban who had never done us any harm. Now we have ISIL fighting the Taliban.

 

And so to Libya, another brutal regime but stable. So we assisted Gadhafi’s departure, leaving another failed state and haven for ISIL who have occupied Gadhafi’s home town only about 80 miles as the stinger flies from Europe.

 

The big question in many British minds will be about who or what comes after Assad if the West maintains its stance that he must go.

 

This in turn raises the issue of post-war political and diplomatic strategy after ISIL is history, and the complexities of geopolitics that seem not to have been addressed at all.

 

It would seem that the first move is the creation of a grand alliance between the UK, France, the US and, most particularly, Russia. It is also worth noting that of the 1000+ deaths from ISIL terrorism almost all victims have been Muslims, and yet there is little sign of any move for a determined co-operative alliance of Muslim nations to wipe out what must be by far the greatest threat to their own stability. A first move should be to take the Assad question off the agenda; his future (if any) is an increasing irrelevance to the main purpose of crushing ISIL totally. It must not merely be defeated; it must be exterminated ruthlessly for fear that it may rise from the dead at some time in the future.

 

No doubt the libertarian/civil rights nexus will make their usual loud noises regardless of the likelihood that this will give aid and comfort to the enemy. At this time, Western public opinion appears to be highly supportive of bombing Syria; in Russia, public opinion is what Putin says it is.

 

Geopolitical solutions will be long term, but they must be radical. There is a once-and-for-all opportunity for the major powers to unravel the artificial boundaries created by the Sykes-Picot deal after WW1.

 

Colonial administrators were adept at drawing straight lines on maps, as in the post-Ottoman carve-up. Inevitably this disregarded sectarian, tribal, and ethnic distinctions. The geopolitical challenge is to rectify this. First. Syria.

 

It is beyond peradventure that this is a failed state that has totally disintegrated. There must be a new creation which will separate as far as is geographically possible, Shia, Sunni, Christian/Maronites and Druze. This might also involve adjustment of Lebanon’s borders. A further move might be to remove Kurdish areas from both Syria and Iraq to create a new Kurdish State, however much squealing from Erdogan (at least the Islamo-Fascist won’t have to worry about publicity at home, having locked up nearly all Turkish hacks).

 

And it is blindingly obvious that Iraq is a basket case; it will never be a functional state without root-and–branch changes that accommodate both Sunni and Shia, and this means a federal structure.

 

The end-game is not pacification of Syria by bombing, or making war, but securing a lasting peace. The option is a lasting turmoil.