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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then the Prime Minister, as we’ve just been discussing, has given his clearest signal yet that he wants to take the fight against Islamic State into Syria.  In an interview on American television he says he wants Britain ‘to do more’, that’s the quote, although he acknowledges he’s need the backing of parliament, as I say we’ve just been discussing with Ben Bradshaw on that.  Mr Cameron was defeated when MPs voted on action in Syria a couple of years ago but has the mood music changed since then?  Well I’m joined now by the new Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, one Crispin Blunt, a very good morning to you Mr Blunt.  So let’s get straight into that, I know you were listening to the thoughts of Ben Bradshaw there, let’s take that first of all, has the mood music changed?  Is the situation very different now from 2013?

CRISPIN BLUNT: The situation is entirely different from 2013.  In 2013 we were talking about bombing Assad’s regime in order to deprive him of his chemical weapons, we are now in a totally different situation where the enemy is wholly different, Islamic State, so called, Daesh, ISIL, call it what you will, is a profound enemy to us, it is a profound enemy to our civilisation, it is an enemy to the countries that surround it.  I would argue that it is a very profound enemy to Sunni Islam itself, this is in effect a civil war within Sunni Islam and it is in absolutely everyone’s interests that it is defeated.  So the mission should be completely clear, how you achieve that – and it needs to start with depriving them of control of territory on the ground and that is only the beginning of what the Prime Minister has described as a generational conflict against the ideology, but that’s where we need to start.

DM: But given that discussion in 2013 and it still is official British government policy to oppose and wish to see the end of the Assad regime, I mean the practicalities of attacking one of his major opponents, military opponents, in Syria may well make it more likely that Assad and his regime survives.

CRISPIN BLUNT: Well that’s why we need to get clarity on the mission.  If the mission is to destroy …

DM: But that’s it though isn’t it?  That’s what might happen, that’s the clarity.  

CRISPIN BLUNT: You then have to deal with the consequentials.  One of the consequentials if you are going to take and occupy territory in Syria and Iraq that is currently held by so-called Islamic State, then you are going to have to work out what you are going to do about Syria and that means really you need an end to the Geneva process and a settlement of what will happen in Syria between the competing parties in Syria.  Syria is immensely complex but what is not complex is that Islamic State is our enemy and the enemy of all the states around it and they should be the uniting factor to be able to pull together a regional strategy encompassing Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia for example, agreeing on how this is to be done.  That means you have got to work out what you’re going to do with Syria, issues such as Kurdistan and the tensions within Iraq as well between those parties and then you would then get a United Nations Security Council resolution, the permanent five countries with the UN Security Council could then make sure that the operation had legal authority but critically it would then have the military capability to ensure victory over Islamic State but it would have to be done on the ground by principally Sunni forces, Sunni ground forces who are going to have to take and occupy that territory.

DM: Okay, I want to talk about the parliamentary activity which may or may not take place but that phrase you’ve used twice now, take and occupy territory in Syria, I mean you can only do that with physical assets on the ground.  

CRISPIN BLUNT: Absolutely and it’s quite important that those assets on the ground are led by Sunni armed forces in the region.  Now they will need war-winning capability that can be provided to them in terms of air power, artillery, whatever else.  

DM: But there are those in our own military and American military saying in actual fact if we’re going to do this job, let’s do it properly, we have the wherewithal we just don’t have the will to put those kind of assets in ourselves.  

CRISPIN BLUNT: Well that would be a rather profound mistake because you then play straight to the narrative of the ideology we are seeking to destroy.  If you then have either Western powers or Shi’a, principally Shi’a Islamic forces then taking on these forces on the ground, then you are playing to the narrative of those we’re fighting and that will then cause us further problems down the line.  This must be seen to be defeated by principally Sunni Islamic forces, the rest of us are all on their side and we can then provide them with the battle winning enablers but to get to that place we need a diplomatic strategy, we need a political strategy, we’re not even there yet, we’re not even beginning to deal with the issues of Syria, what are we going to do about Syria and the complexities of Syria.  That needs to be there as part of the building blocks of us being then able to deal with …

DM: So you’re saying a political strategy, a domestic political strategy from all the political parties hopefully within Westminster and I know you listened to what Ben Bradshaw said, two basic things, that Mr Cameron bungled the process from his point of view last time round in trying to get Labour to support action against the Assad regime as we’ve discussed but also that he is a bit shocked that it has kind of been happening in a de facto manner because of British military personnel attached to our allies.  

CRISPIN BLUNT: I am personally slightly frustrated that the issue of two or three embedded pilots with the US Navy is something of a massive distraction here.  In the whole scheme of defeating Islamic State it is a matter of profound unimportance and indeed the contribution of the Royal Air Force in the whole coalition operation, flying about 5% of the missions now over both Iraq and Syria is not exactly the central contribution to defeating Islamic State.  It can be an important contribution within an alliance but what Britain should be particularly strong at is her diplomacy and trying to get Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt and those countries in the same place, to agree a strategy which can then be supported by the P5 powers to enable us to win this thing in the first instance, which is to deprive them of territory.  Now that’s what I think we should be focusing on, that’s where we could bring real weight to this.  Our military contribution frankly can be just a little overblown if we’re not careful, it needs to be seen in a proper context.  

DM: Mr Blunt, great to talk to you, thank you very much indeed. Crispin Blunt there, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.