Bombing in itself never achieves a political goal. It terrifies, provokes, destroys, kills. It can assist victory when in close support of ground forces, as in the conquest of Kabul or Tripoli. But that impact is limited to the battlefield. So-called strategic bombing has an appalling record, mitigated only by the power of the arms lobby and a cosy perception that air strikes “send messages”, a sort of beefed-up economic sanctions.

The current wave of bombing in Syria appears to be a response, as is often the case with air wars, to US domestic politics.

It is to show Barack Obama is “not a wimp” and is “taking the fight to the enemy”. Even so he has been forced to justify it on the grounds that Isis is a “threat to American security”, a ludicrous claim. Terrorists can explode bombs and kill people, but they do not endanger modern democracies.


www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/s...ia-escalate-violence