The fight against Isis must be the war of the long haul

After the nightmare of the Paris terrorist attacks, the pressure mounts on leaders to be seen to be acting, to make a big, immediate gesture that shows they are in control. Yet in the immediate aftermath of Paris and other recent atrocities there are no such sweeping moves available. That does not mean they are powerless. There is a lot to be done – but the policies available to them are, for the long haul, incremental and tough. They are changes that require patience. They do not necessarily satisfy the demands of the 24-hour media. But they are the only levers available.

For David Cameron to announce that the UK will now bomb targets in Syria would be the wrong response to what happened in Paris on Friday night. He cannot do so, as he is not certain of commanding a majority in the Commons for the big gesture: the immediate allure of the military strike. The constraint is important. The events in Paris change nothing in relation to the arguments about increased UK military action. The thoughtful, forensic case advanced by the Foreign Affairs Committee against bombing in Syria applies now as it did when the report was published earlier this month. The Tory-led committee is not stupid. Isis had launched appalling attacks before Paris and was part of a context in which it reached its conclusions. The question the committee addressed was whether British air strikes against Syria would form part of a clearly thought-through military strategy, and it concluded that it would not. At this point, there is still no clearly thought-through military strategy, although one may surface soon.

Jeremy Corbyn faces an onslaught of criticism for his opposition to UK military action in Syria, but he is right and courageous to stand firm. The easy and weak move for a Labour leader of the Opposition would be to receive praise from the media for acting “responsibly” by supporting David Cameron in launching air strikes. In advance of military action, the fickle media hailed Tony Blair for his principled courage as he took the least bold option of supporting President George W Bush in his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Only subsequently did it turn against him. Corbyn could generate a thousand supportive columns about how he is proving to be “credible” by supporting military action – but he does not believe this would help, and he sticks to his convictions. This will prove to be more credible.

Only a vote in the Commons prevented a vaguely planned military attack on Bashar al-Assad in the last Parliament. If that attack had taken place and weakened Assad, the main beneficiary would have been Isis. Prevented from taking that course, Cameron and Barack Obama now have the space to explore with Russian President Vladimir Putin the scope for a wider anti-Isis alliance.

Diplomacy is part of the long haul for a British Prime Minister. Providing the resources and powers to the intelligence agencies and the police is another. A fortnight ago, I argued here that Theresa May’s proposals to give intelligence agencies greater access to internet records were a sensible response in an era when terrorists organise partly through the internet. The attacks in Paris, successful in part because of a failure of intelligence, reaffirm the need for the proposals to be implemented speedily. Paris does not make the case for immediate British military action. It does show how important intelligence agencies are in preventing more attacks from happening.

George Osborne’s spending review also plays an important part. The Chancellor has decided his priority is to balance the books by an arbitrarily set deadline. In the real world, properly resourced policing is part of the protective shield that would minimise the scope for terrorist attacks. May was already resisting the proposed onslaught on her police budget. Now she has an even more powerful case: investing in community policing and intelligence agencies is part of the long, arduous task ahead.

There will have to be heightened border checks within the rest of the EU. The Schengen agreement needs urgent revision, as President François Hollande has suggested. The freedom to move between borders is trumped by the need for countries to be protected from terrorists travelling without adequate checks. One lever is to put up border controls between countries within the EU. On the whole, the migrants’ issue should not be conflated with the terrorist attacks, but obviously one way a terrorist can get from Syria to a European capital is via the chaotic journeys undertaken by those fleeing the nightmares of a bloody civil war. Border checks will bring a degree of control and, equally important, a perception of control from alarmed voters across the EU.

Ultimately, there may be a military solution: a US-Russia alliance targeting Isis strongholds from the air and on the ground. The UK would be irrelevant in terms of its relatively puny military machine. Some Tory MPs tell me they are confident there is now a majority in the Commons for strikes, but if I were Cameron I would not be so sure. One barometer figure is the former shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, who feels vindicated, with good cause, in his opposition to air strikes on Assad in the last Parliament and now believes that the only hope of an effective military operation arises from the conversation between Obama and Putin over the weekend at the G20 summit. He still does not support UK air strikes.

The long haul is not immediately intoxicating for political leaders, but those who rushed haphazardly into military action after 11 September 2001 exposed their impotence, rather than their might. For leaders of medium-sized powers, including the UK, there is more might in the long haul.