There are a number of questions MPs need to ask before they vote on whether to bomb Islamic terrorists inside Syria \u2013 and they should be refracted through Just War theory which, imperfect though it is in an age of terrorism, is still our best guide for ethical thinking here.<\/p>\n
A number of criteria are clearly fulfilled. \u2018Just cause\u2019 and \u2018right intention\u2019 are evident. So is \u2018competent authority\u2019 after last week\u2019s UN Security Council resolution calling on member states to take \u201call necessary measures\u201d against ISIS in both Syria and Iraq \u2013 though what is necessary is not universally agreed. But is this \u2018last resort\u2019? And what of \u2018proportionality\u2019 and \u2018probability of success\u2019?<\/p>\n
It is through that lens that MPs should look when they ask whether the prime minister has fulfilled the requirement of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee \u2013 whose Conservative majority said bombing in Syria should not be approved without a persuasive case that air strikes are part of a \u201ccoherent international strategy\u201d to defeat ISIS and end Syria\u2019s civil war. \u00a0Any benefits of air strikes in Syria would be outweighed by the risks of \u201clegal ambiguity, political chaos on the ground, military irrelevance, and diplomatic costs\u201d, the committee said.<\/p>\n
So the first question is: What material difference will it make if the UK joins the US, France and Russia in bombing?\u00a0 The PM\u2019s insistence that it is \u201cstanding by our allies\u201d is dubious in Just War terms. We might call it the Blair Defence. MPs should be convinced of a clear military advantage.<\/p>\n
Next, may bombing be counter-productive? It could act as a further recruiting sergeant for ISIS whose internal literature makes clear it wants to provoke a battle against all \u201cthe forces of Rome\u201d \u2013 that is the entire Christian heritage world from the US through Europe to orthodox Russia. It sees an apocalyptic battle with \u201cCrusader forces\u201d on ISIS territory as part of a divine plan.<\/p>\n
War has changed.\u00a0 In traditional warfare the aim was to smash the opponent\u2019s army; now it is to break the will of the opponent. Terrorism is a tool for that. But so is provoking disproportionate responses which result in civilian casualties which will make the broader Sunni population \u2013 among which ISIS hides \u2013 see the West as a bigger threat than ISIS. We should have learned that from drone bombings of wedding parties and children\u2019s hospitals in Afghanistan. \u00a0But technology makes an imprecise hitting back too easy, without endangering the lives of our own troops.<\/p>\n
What will replace ISIS on the ground if it is militarily obliterated? There are not two sides in the Syrian civil war but at least four, each with international backers. Assad is backed by Russia and by Shia Iran. ISIS and other salafis groups are unofficially backed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Syrian Free Army is backed by the US.\u00a0 Then there are the Turks who are using the cover of fighting Isis to bomb the Kurdish even as they fight ISIS.<\/p>\n
The story of Iraq and Libya is that when a bad regime is removed something worse can rush into the vacuum. Is there a coherent strategy to avoid that?<\/p>\n
Finally, by bombing Syria, the UK will lose some of its diplomatic independence, and sacrifice leverage in the current round of \u00a0international diplomacy in Vienna. Is the military gain worth the diplomatic loss where, in the end, there can be no military solution only a political one? A coherent realpolitik transition for Syria must be negotiated internationally.<\/p>\n
The Paris massacre may provoke us to the conviction that \u201csomething must be done\u201d. \u00a0But MPS need to think very carefully about what that something should be.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
from The Church Times<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are a number of questions MPs need to ask before they vote on whether to bomb Islamic terrorists inside Syria \u2013 and they should be refracted through Just War theory which, imperfect though it is in an age of terrorism, is still our best guide for ethical thinking here. A number of criteria are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[699,40,27,37,327],"tags":[700,383],"class_list":["post-8385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-camerons-britain","category-ethics","category-islam","category-politics","category-war","tag-isis","tag-syria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8385"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8388,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8385\/revisions\/8388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}