ANYONE who thinks there are easy answers to the crisis unfolding in Iraq is naive or misguided. The truth is that David Cameron’s Government has a difficult – perhaps ultimately impossible – balance to strike.
And, so far, the Government should be given credit for finding a route through the complexities of a dangerous situation.
On one hand, Britain cannot stand back and do nothing in response to what the Prime Minister has rightly called the “monstrous” Islamic State militant group (IS).
But that response has to be measured. Mr Cameron cannot act independently of the US, he cannot make a move without consulting MPs, and he knows British public opinion is set against “boots on the ground” intervention.
The resulting strategy began with Britain playing an active role in providing humanitarian relief and that has developed into an intelligence gathering role.
Mr Cameron may insist that Britain will not send in the Army, but the reality is that the SAS are already on the ground. Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion Yorkshire Regiment have been sent to Erbil, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and RAF Tornado jets are being used for “surveillance”.
The clear message is that Britain is ready to change course to more direct intervention if the political climate changes.
It is a sensible approach. It means Britain is being seen as responsive without over-reacting, but that balance will be increasingly difficult to maintain.
Sooner, rather than later, Mr Cameron will have to be clearer about what he means when he says he has a “fully worked through strategy”
for Iraq.
The British people will need to be told his end game – and how he intends to get there.
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