Martin Docherty-Hughes is the SNP MP for West Dunbartonshire

THE horror contained in the images of the chemical gas attack in the southern Syrian city of Douma have mobilised a global public opinion that had rather shamefully let the countless other examples of brutality in that conflict go unremarked – yet the correct response to such a heinous act remains problematic.

I and my SNP colleagues will meet on Monday to discuss what our response will be, and I expect most importantly that we will seek to ensure that there is parliamentary oversight of what is always the most solemn of decisions. Unfortunately the dismal beat of the war drums is already echoing around Whitehall, and the government seems like it will be pulled into a series of symbolic air strikes, without having any real, thought out plan.

One thing I know all of the SNP MPs will agree on is that the seeming normalisation of such chemical attacks by the Assad regime is unacceptable. The shameful statements by the Russian ambassador yesterday at the press conference he gave in London, deflecting from the clear culpability of the Assad regime, and blaming organisations such as the White Helmets only serve to further underline why both Moscow and Damascus can not be allowed to get away with making such a mockery of international law.

Not only has the Assad regime used chemical gas on other occasions, it has a clear motive in ending a conflict which it has only been able to survive thanks to the military and economic aid received from Russia and Iran – the indescribable trauma experienced by the victims in Douma, will make rebels in other areas surrounded by Syrian Arab Army forces think twice in future.

But what to do? It is not entirely clear to me, or many that I have spoken to, that a military response is necessarily the most appropriate punishment for such a flagrant and repeated breach of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention – especially if such strikes will only increase the suffering of Syrian people who have had more than enough.

The last time the chemical weapons were used in Syria, the response of the ostensibly isolationist US President Trump was swift and severe, with some 50 cruise missiles unleashed to hit the regime’s Shayrat airbase – yet as many commentators have pointed out, despite this barrage, the airbase was open to traffic again just hours later.

Furthermore, the precedent of such an attack, along with further sabre-rattling from President Trump on twitter this week, ironically means that Syrian military assets will likely have been displaced, making the chances of any effective ‘surgical’ strike to take away the capabilities for delivering chemical weapons much slimmer.

Following the long distance strikes last year, the Syrian air force, already well integrated doctrinally and in terms of capabilities with Russian forces, has increased its reliance on Russian air defence systems, including the S-400 anti-access / area denial (A2AD) system, which has caused much concern for Western militaries as it effectively denies them the easy air dominance they have enjoyed in every conflict in recent memory – increasing the potential cost of any strikes.

It is a cocktail of problems which mean many experts are unclear as to exactly what will be achieved: to take just one example, Ewan Lawson, Senior Research Fellow for Military Influence at RUSI said yesterday that “the sole use of the military instrument is really dangerous, and potentially inappropriate.”

While both the Russian and Syrian regime now seem happy to embrace the international isolation that their actions have brought them, there unfortunately seems no alternative to making sure that a robust diplomatic solution is also sought, beginning with the resumption of the Geneva talks which have unfortunately been stalled since last year. Bringing all the parties together is the only solution which will alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people, which should be foremost in all our minds after the horrors of Douma.

This will also allow the UK government the time to come up with a plan beyond the Pavlovian instinct for air strikes. I personally am forever intrigued by those who frequently accuse the left of ‘virtue signalling’ being the foremost proponents of it’s military equivalent. Unless there is a willing and acceptable ground force in place – something that has long been hinted at, but never realised – the strategic utility of such strikes is negligible.

That is why our first task next week will be to ensure that the UK Government is held to account by Parliament, and that they justify any actions they take. I understand they feel that the recent precedent for Parliamentary oversight is unnecessarily restrictive, and again the strange instincts of the British state are laid bare.

In his book on another Middle Eastern conflict the UK found itself sucked into without much foresight, the conservative commentator Peter Oborne wrote “there has always been an unresolved contradiction between an essentially medieval system of government and Britain’s democratic tradition as it evolved over the last two hundred years”, and again Tory MPs who regularly froth about the return of Parliamentary sovereignty after Brexit will blithely give it up over matters of life and death.

It is hard to find any side who has come out of this conflict well: and we must also ask ourselves difficult questions about why, seven years on, the conflict in Syria still rages. We must not waste this opportunity to seek a permanent, and thought out solution.