THE countdown has begun to official British military involvement in the quagmire that is Syria. Covert bombing by UK forces has already started, despite the ban imposed by Westminster in 2013. We now know that Royal Navy pilots under US direction began flying strike missions months ago — with David Cameron’s approval.

Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, claims these pilots were operating “as part of an American mission, not a British mission”. You could say that about the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Michael. Don’t be taken in by the sophistry of the Ministry of Defence — which I hope Conservative ministers will have to justify before some future judicial inquiry.

The reality is that British public opinion is being softened up for yet another ground and air war in the boiling political cauldron that is the Middle East and the wider Islamic world. Just as in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, ham-fisted Western intervention will only magnify problems in the area rather than promote peace. Worse, another ill-judged British military incursion into this complicated religious, ethnic and class conflict risks a terrorist backlash inside the UK.

This weekend David Cameron was forced to come clean about his intentions. Speaking about the UK’s future role in fighting the self-styled Islamic State — otherwise known as Daesh — Cameron told a US TV audience: “I want Britain to do more ... but be in no doubt, we’re committed to working with you to destroy the caliphate in both countries.”

But hang on. The original veto by Parliament over British air strikes in Syria involved their use against the Assad regime, which had been caught red handed using chemical weapons against civilians. David Cameron has moved the goal posts and is now talking about bombing Daesh inside Syria. Why? Because he can claim — after the murder of British holidaymakers in Tunisia by a Daesh-inspired assassin — that the Daesh caliphate is a direct threat to the UK. Same war, different excuse to get involved.

The fact that the British Government now wants to bomb a different faction inside Syria — whatever the justification — gets to the heart of why it is a bad idea. This move has little to do with domestic security. Rather, the Tories are continuing with the failed US-UK policy of trying to impose a Western solution on the Middle East, the better to protect their broader economic and material interests. But a century of such Imperial meddling actually created the present mess. Expect more of the same.

Second, direct British and US military intervention in Syria could well transform a regional proxy war — admittedly savage and inhumane — into an outright global conflagration involving Iran, Turkey and Israel. Just look at how David Cameron’s crusade in Libya has turned out and you will see that his ability to foresee or command international events is hardly encouraging.

Yet the biggest volte-face over UK military action in Syria comes not from the Tories but from Labour. Not content with backing the Conservatives on axing tax credits, Harriet Harman, Labour’s interim leader, has signalled her support for British military intervention in Syria. She attended a meeting of the National Security Council last Tuesday for a briefing by Cameron and military chiefs, along with Labour Shadow Defence Secretary Vernon Coaker.

Like Cameron, Harman’s justification for supporting direct UK intervention is Daesh. But Daesh is the direct outcome of Western and Saudi machinations in Syria, aimed at ousting the pro-Iran Assad regime. As in Iraq, the US and UK thought they could replace an uppity local dictator with a pro-Western, secular regime. More fool them. Meanwhile the Saudis, with their own agenda, funded and armed Sunni Islamist groups, thus helping Daesh to emerge from the political shadows.

I’M happy to refer in print to this movement as Daesh rather than Islamic State, as long as no one is naïve enough to actually believe this entity is merely a rag-tag terrorist outfit. It has division-size army units in the field, possesses a modest air force, governs a capital city, and exports petroleum (via Turkey) to earn foreign currency. The backbone of its military and intelligence organisation is Saddam Hussain’s old military high command — which is why it has had the capability to capture and hold large swathes of Syria and Iraq. It might not be Islamic but it certainly is a state.

The upside is that states are easier to defeat than amorphous terrorist organisations. The downside is that Daesh is the first pan-Arab state to sweep away the artificial boundaries imposed by Western interests after the First World War (principally to grab local oil wealth). Early secular pan-Arabism — represented by Egyptian Nasserism and the semi-fascist Ba’ath Party of the Assads — quickly succumbed to personal corruption. Daesh has succeeded where they failed, simultaneously holding the hated Americans, Persians and “heretic” Saudis to a military draw. That is why its appeal is so potent.

To date, the Americans have been strangely reluctant to eliminate the Daesh state. The reason is obvious — Iran. The Daesh mini-state is a good way of distracting Shia Iran by threatening Baghdad, the capital of Tehran’s Iraqi protectorate. Not to be outdone, Tehran is building a 50,000 strong army in Syria (composed of Lebanese Hezbollah militia and Iranian Revolutionary Guards) to fight alongside President Assad.

Current fighting in Syria has a surreal quality about it. The Assad regime is concentrating its attacks against rebel Sunni forces around Aleppo, in the north. These latter are backed by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Consequently, for the time being, Assad is giving tacit freedom of action to the Daesh-ISIS units in south and eastern Syria, on the basis that my enemy’s enemy is my (temporary) friend.

What are the Americans up to? Their air strikes – in which British personnel are involved - are in support of Kurdish fighters inside Syria opposing Daesh. Yet anything that helps the Kurds tends to upset the Turkish regime of President Recep Erdogan, which fears an indigenous Kurdish break-away. In retaliation, Turkey has massed some 65,000 troops and 1,200 tanks on the Syrian border. But a Turkish invasion – to contain the Kurds, not Daesh – risks igniting a civil strife inside Turkey. We could also be looking at the break-up of Syria into various protectorates, meaning British troops on the ground for years, as per Iraq and Afghanistan.

But surely we have to do something about Daesh? Yes, but while bombing them makes for dramatic TV pictures, it rarely brings lasting political solutions. An effective sealing of the porous Turkish border might have greater impact on Daesh’s ability to trade oil and recruit foreign supporters. Brokering a deal with the Turks to support the Kurds in the field against Daesh would be more useful in the short term than sending in a few RAF Tornadoes.

Certainly the mini Daesh state can be crushed military by Western military might. But the likely political repercussions of further overt Western interference in the Middle East will be domestic revolution against the Saudi and Gulf rulers, increased Iranian influence, and a further round of Islamicist violence globally. Now is a time to offer diplomatic subtlety and mutual respect rather than Western arrogance.

The National View: Only by winning  the battle of hearts and minds can we defeat Daesh