UK Syria airstrikes strategy carries risks

Significance

The government is aligning itself with the emerging international strategy against ISG in Syria. Its push to participate in airstrikes in part reflects a wish to reassert the United Kingdom's role as an international security partner, especially to the United States and France.

Impacts

• The government envisages airstrikes as being needed for at least 12-18 months.
• The United Kingdom will be important but secondary in the anti-ISG coalition, with the United States continuing to conduct most operations.
• In the interests of its anti-ISG strategy, the government will temper its insistence on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stepping down.
• The risk of an Islamist terrorist attack in the United Kingdom will increase.
• If Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn comes to be seen as correct in his anti-airstrikes stance, it will further envenom relations on the left.