‘Why I voted for airstrikes’ – Leslie

August 11 2001, New York. I was gazing down at the tiny Statue of Liberty from the summit of one of the twin towers. It was my Birthday and a friend had taken me on a trip up The World Trade Centre as a treat. Exactly a month later, from a sofa in Chicago, I watched the second plane hit the second tower, live on TV.

My link with that cataclysmic event was so tenuous, but it changed my life. America’s terrifying “God on our side” reaction in the next day’s papers made me cancel my impending Masters degree to try to make some splinter of difference through working in media. In 2003, when I was not becoming Kate Adie but putting contestants into BBC Weakest Link shows, my desperate opposition to the Iraq War propelled me into politics.

Perhaps to my shame, some might say, I did not vote for intervention in Libya in 2011. I did not think ‘lessons had been learned’ from Iraq. I was fearful that we did not have a follow-up plan and that the chaos that I believed would follow our military actions would be worse than the tyrant they were attempting to limit or remove.

Who knows what would have happened had we not intervened in Libya. But today, Libya is a chaotic turmoil of tribes – the perfect incubator for Da’esh- particularly given the country’s rich natural resources which could fund a new Da’esh base.  Whilst we focus on Syria, we overlook the growth of Da’esh and extremist groups in Libya at our peril.

Neither did I vote for air-strikes on Syria in 2013, against President Assad. I was in deepest Africa, miles from the nearest mobile signal or desert airstrip, and could not get back in time. But had I done so, it would have been to return to rebel against my Government.

I had been in Syria in February 2011, just before the Arab Spring hit, and much as I loathed seeing what was happening to this beautiful country and its people, I did not see the case had been made, and I did not believe The West had thought it through.

The shadow of the disastrous mistakes of Iraq loom large over both these decisions. Iraq provides a template of mistake we must never repeat again. But in the desperation not to replicate Iraq 2003, we are in danger of seeing parallels where they do not apply, in debating extending UK air-strikes from Iraq, across the border into Syria.

And so this is why, with a heavy heart, I voted for extending air-strikes.

First, this is not ‘starting a war’, as the War in Iraq was starting a war. This is extending airstrikes that we are already conducting in Iraq, over the border – a border that Da’esh does not recognise – into Syria. It makes little sense to turn back at a border and fail to provide the protection to the villages and communities on the other side of that border from the terrifying onslaught of Da’esh.

Second, the Iraq war was justified on a claim most of us saw as spurious at best – the 45-minute weapons of mass destruction claim. By contrast, this extension of intervention into Syria is in response to horrifically evident acts of destruction by Da’esh terrorists– Tunisia, or Paris last month. Da’esh does, actually, this very minute, pose a threat to all of us.

The grim truth is that as you are reading this, there are at this moment individuals focused solely on finding new ways to kill us, not because of what we do, but because of who we are. Our security services have (thank God) prevented seven terrorist attacks this year. But the idea that if we turn down our Allies’ request to join their intervention, somehow the threat of terrorism in the UK would be removed, is a fantasy – an attractive fantasy – but a dangerous one.

Third – the Iraq War had all the appearances of being completely illegal. The fact that the Chilcott enquiry is taking ridiculously long to report only serves to confirm such a suspicion.

This extension of intervention into Syrian is actually requested by other Arab states and our NATO allies, and confirmed as legal by a UN Resolution.  I have been to the Syrian refugee camps in Turkey. I have seen the terror in the eyes of parents and children traumatised by what they have seen Da’esh do. It is hard to ignore those pleas.

It is important, in weighing up what is in the UK’s national interest, and what our international moral obligations might be, to separate what is actually the case in this situation from the residue fears we all have from Iraq. This is not Iraq, and it would be wrong to see it as such. We cannot let mistakes from the past drive us into making mistakes in the present.

But that said, there are still grave concerns:

How much will our intervention increase the risk to the UK? Security Intelligence suggests that Da’esh are already working full-pelt to attack us, and that we are already at the top of their list of targets. Given that most of the victims in Syria of Da’esh are themselves Muslim, it is arguable that any British Muslim who supports Da’esh against fellow Muslims is already well down the road to extremism.

What is sure is that if we do not undermine their core structures and intelligence, their capability to attack us will increase. Besides, it is a dangerous precedent to set: Did taking on Hitler increase the risk to British citizens? Yes. Was Churchill wrong to do so? There are few who would say he was.

Will airstrikes actually make a tangible difference? Given the unique capability of British forces in fine targeting, there is a strong likelihood that our intervention will make a difference – not just through an increase in numbers of sorties, but in the type and efficiency of targeting that we are able to perform.

One of the most important roles in targeted air strikes will be to cut off Da’esh’s source of income – oil supplies. We need to trace who is funding Da’esh in purchasing this oil, but the immediate priority is to ensure that this income is cut off – and air strikes are well placed to help achieve this.

Do we really have a plan? In the fractured chaos of Syria, it will be hard to set out a precise and detailed step-by-step plan, but the over-all plan is to enable counter-Da’esh forces to eliminate Da’esh in Syria, then move towards forming a stable Syrian state.

There are genuine questions about whether the 70,000 Free Syrian Army fighters, we have been told exist, actually do exist in what we would recognise as anything approaching an ‘army’, or are capable of being brought together to build a state.

When I asked the Prime Minister about this, he did not seem to talk-up the situation, rather was almost reassuringly realistic about the difficulties of factions, the fact many are far from ideal partners, and that the ground troops scenario is a difficult issue.

There are also genuine questions over how far we should be prepared to negotiate with Putin, who has leverage with Assad.  However, I am not convinced that the fact that issues remain to be resolved is a good reason not to engage with intervention now.  If we take no action now, there will be fewer, not more, non-radicalised forces available with whom we can work.

Equally, Britain’s involvement with its allies in air strikes gives Britain more leverage in the all-important Vienna Process and political solution, which is absolutely essential.

This is not Iraq. This is not ‘declaring war’.  This is not ‘dropping bombs on Syria’. This is extending targeted air-strikes from over the now practically meaningless boundary of Iraq, into Syria, to target Da’esh at it’s heart, on the desperate request of Arab nations and NATO allies.

Is it an easy decision? No. Is it complicated? Yes. But since there is no good solution, only the least worst, I voted to extend our military air capability into Da’esh strongholds in Syria, to help protect our national security.

Ultimately, however, this debate seems to be taking place against the backdrop of an international politics struggling with how to tackle a new kind of threat – a contagious, cult-like, quasi-psychiatric condition of blinkered hatred that has more in common with the wild-fire contagion of a virus than the simple force of an army.

Could it be that Islam is under-going its own Reformation and Enlightenment process, which, let’s not forget, was a barbaric and brutal process of witch-burnings and slaughter for Christianity? Certainly it is the case that the vast majority of peace-loving moderate Muslims are now fighting to assert their moderate Islam in the face of this medieval, extremist, takfiri mutation of the religion, and we should all be helping them, with a muscular moderation.

Only when we can all demonstrate, powerfully, robustly, together, that hatred is not strong but weak; not clever but pitiful; born not of bravery but of fear and inadequacy, can we begin to combat this viral cult of darkness with the healing strength of tolerance and light.

This statement first appeared on Charlotte Leslie’s blog.