Shall we? Shan't we?

David Cameron and many others seem to be determined to join in the action and add our little bit of misery to probably the most miserable place on earth at the moment. As Jeremy Corbyn has just sent me an e-mail asking my opinion on the matter, here are my thoughts on the question of the week: To bomb or not to bomb Syria? 

Will bombing IS in Syria make it safer for us here? 

I don't believe it will. The biggest threat to us seems to be from small groups of highly motivated terrorists acting in a dispersed fashion. Take into consideration the relatively unsophisticated hardware they need to wreak their havoc and the ease of control and command through the Internet, I can't see how bombing bases in Syria is going to prevent attacks in the UK and elsewhere. And will bombing them actually increase the possibility of retaliation? That seems both probable and plausible to me.

Will bombing IS in Syria get rid of them?
Again, I don't believe it will. They are now so firmly embedded within the civilian population it's going to be nigh on impossible to get at them with air strikes. At best bombing will slow and hinder any more major advances. Can anyone remember the last time something was mended by dropping a bomb on it?

My view is that if the allies want to defeat IS anytime soon, say in the next decade or so, then they are going to have to get in amongst them at the sharp end. And, let's face it, no western country has got the stomach for that little adventure and that's why they arm groups like the Peshmerga and send them off to battle as proxies. IS is a Muslim problem that can only be really defeated by the rest of the Islamic world rejecting IS's ridiculous and perverted ideology and their hijacking of the faith of billions of peace loving people around the world. Dropping bombs kills people but it does not kill an ideology: that can only be done from within and by the very people this death cult claims to represent.
 

 It's time to try a different track and here's where I get really depressed. Although they cry crocodile tears about the consequences, politicians can understand bombing and it makes them look as if they are  in control and are doing something. The problem is that they seem set on doing the wrong thing and without a coherent strategy for managing the aftermath. More often than not, doing the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing. Or have I missed something?