ISIS must be destroyed with air strikes

In the wake of Paris, David Cameron is set to ask the House of Commons to authorise anti-ISIS strikes in Syria. In terms of strategy, this is common sense. The RAF is already striking ISIS targets in Iraq – it is ludicrous to respect a non-existent border that our enemy does not.

Critics are right that escalation of British airstrikes alone will not be decisive. However, like the UN Security Council Resolution passed unanimously last week, a vote to escalate airstrikes would be an important symbol of British determination, and a small step towards a final victory in the war against ISIS

But the justice of the cause must never be in doubt: ISIS must be destroyed. In my opinion, jihadism is ideologically very similar to Nazism. It is a utopian mass movement, both revolutionary and reactionary in nature. It seeks the overthrow and conquest of governments to restore the glory of a lost Empire. It values strength, purity and loyalty to the Nation above all other virtues. It despises Western liberal democracy as corrupting and indulgent. It has a genocidal hatred of minorities. Its “grievances” are irrational and ultimately impossible to appease.

Irrational and ultimately impossible to appease

That’s what they believe, so what do they do? ISIS has attempted a genocide of the entire Yazidi people, sparing only those girls they sexually enslave. They’ve sought the destruction of the Kurds, to punish them for their adoption of liberal Western values. Homosexuals are thrown from buildings, “adulterers” stoned to death. And as we saw in Paris, they seek to strike at the very heart of the West. Just as Nazism caused the Holocaust and World War II, this barbarity is an inevitable consequence of their hideous ideology. Thus co-existence is not just undesirable but impossible.

Since the collapse of the Twin Towers, much of Western liberal opinion has been unable to maintain moral clarity. In Syria and Iraq, millions of innocents have been caught between Assad’s barrel bombs on the one hand, and the knives of jihadists on the other. Hundreds of thousands have died, millions are internally displaced or in exile. Given this status quo, where both Assad and ISIS are deliberately maximising the devastation, ruling any Western intervention as immoral on the grounds of civilian casualties is the height of absurdity.

Similarly, those who complain that Mohammed Emwazi (Jihadi John), ought to have been tried in a British court need to answer a simple question: how? The butcher of American aid workers and Japanese journalists was in Raqqa, deep in ISIS territory. The choice was between a drone strike and doing nothing. One can only conclude that these critics are more concerned with not getting the West’s hands dirty, than any notion of justice or protection of innocents.

Morally, there is a world of difference between the forces of theocracy and democracy. It really is black and white. If we are to win both the war on the ground and the war of ideas, we must never lose sight of that simple truth.