To be honest, I'm not sure if the UK joining the bombing campaign in Syria will make much of a material difference.
My intent was really to point out the dichotomy of bombing Daesh in one place (Iraq) and not in the other (Syria), and how objections due to the lack of a "transition plan" are nonsensical in the current context.
It won't make much material difference without a ground offensive. That's hardly a unique opinion of mine though. It's the widely held view of a majority of qualified military experts. Targeting random lawn mowers in Aleppo is only going to run you out of missiles eventually
The problem the west faces therefore is just
who, is going to do the hard yards on the ground? Putin has his candidate and is bombing in support of them. The wests options aren't as clear imho
The FSA is disintegrating by the month and gradually going over to Al Nusra. The Kurds won't fight beyond their own homeland. The west could find itself faced with an embarassing Hobsons choice of having to find a way to justify backing Assad ("the butcher"). Their only other option is Liwa al Tawid and Liwa al Islam which at the moment at least, aren't really up to the fighting strength capable of winning this (the best they might be able to do is fight their way to the post war settlement table). I think they might prove more resiliant than many are predicting incidentally, but they've got a mountain to climb in terms of establishing primacy, but I wouldn't be completely confident in writing them off
If backing Assad is unpalatable, then the west is going to need to consider one of two and a half options as far as I can see
1: Finding other arab proxy's (Hezbollah, and Iran)
2: Invading, and doing it themselves (my plan C)
2b: Just letting Putin get on with it
I'm not sure which of the these is the more dangerous? You might of course find that Putin has already put forces in on the ground by then, in which case you have a really hazardous situation developing whereby Russia is actively engaged in supporting the UN recognised government of Syria on request, and we're now fighting alongside a disperate rebel group, potentially in direct conflict
The other option of using willing arab proxies risks setting off a series of Shia militias reeking retribution on Sunnis, as we saw in Tikrit. What happens then? Do the sunni states who are already sponsoring, start to engage more openly? I don't know, but we can probably all accept that it looks perilous and not exactly what we wanted to achieve. Longer term, it also risks the creation of a Russian facing Shia nexus across the north of the region (Syria, Iraq, & Iran) ranged against an American facing Sunni nexus in the Gulf. That doesn't look particular helpful as the foundation for future tensions either
In the context, I don't believe the absence of a transition plan is actually without its merits as a concern, but I'm going to stop short of calling it a reason not to engage. I prefer to think of its absence as something else that adds more to the debilitating noise, and makes what is already a complicated situation, that little bit more difficult. If we can't agree a transition plan, then clearly the possibility of Western and Russian, or Shia and Sunni coming up against each other increases as different forces pursue conflicting strategies, albeit it would be a mistake to say this is an unavoidable conflict. It should have red warning lights flashing all over it though
Russia have offered the west a perfectly acceptable plan so far as I can see. Assad has agreed to fair and open democratic elections in the future. All the Russians are asking is that he be allowed to stand as a candidate. The west however seem to want to pick the candidates for this free and open democratic election. If they accepted the Russian suggestion then they've effectively been handed a get of jail card to couch their military intervention under; support of a future democratic process (which if they're correct, Assad will surely lose?)
Ultimately the country has little prospects anyway post war and is likely to need redrawing (no easy task given that it's likely to involve a Kurdish homeland on the Turkish border). Syria is going to be an economic and social wreck with all its infrastructure smashed up, plus 101 competing groups all wanting something from each other. You could easily see a second civil war erupting with criminal gangs and tribes now leading the charge. I doubt any meaningful election could take place anyway, which might suit everyone yet. Or put it another way, if you're going to showcase democracy, then the blind advocates of this might pause to consider just what landscape they're going to be inheriting first. You could easily end up setting something up that is doomed from the outset and does more damage to the wider cause than good
