However, in recent days, the Prime Minister’s enthusiasm for further intervention appears to have waned following private warnings from Sir David and Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, about the implications of being drawn further into the Syrian civil war.
… There is a lack of international consensus on how to take this forward,” he said. “We are trying to cohere the opposition groups, but they are difficult to cohere because there are many different dimensions to them.
“So it is work in progress, so I am very clear in my military advice to the government that we need to understand what the political objective is before we can sensibly recommend what military effort and forces should be applied to it.”
He added: “That is something we debate a lot, from the Prime Minister downwards. We also need to do this with our allies. Allies have different views on the way ahead. Understandably there is a great reluctance to see Western boots on the ground in a place like Syria.”
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Sir David, 61, said: “If you wanted to have the material impact on the Syrian regime’s calculations that some people seek, a no fly zone per se is insufficient.
“You have to be able, as we did successfully in Libya, to hit ground targets.
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“If you want to have the material effect that people seek you have to be able to hit ground targets and so you would be going to war if that is what you want to do.” (Con Coughlin and Robert Winnett, Daily Telegraph, 18 July 2013. (Copyright the Daily Telegraph)