I’LL never forget watching the bombs dropping on Baghdad, only a few days after my 18th birthday. Nor will most of my generation. In contrast, Britain’s liberal pundits are a forgetful and fickle bunch. Fourteen years ago, they almost unanimously backed invading Afghanistan, on the grounds that al Qaeda’s extraordinary evil made anything but conquest morally unspeakable. Draping themselves in the garb of Hannah Arendt and Winston Churchill, they condemned all anti-war critics as appeasers of a neo-fascist, nihilistic death cult.

By 2003, the extraordinary evil had shifted to Iraq. And true, this split liberal opinion: some cried, “invade now before he launches his missiles in 45 minutes”. Others cautioned, “wait until we get UN backing”. Still, the main media message was crystal clear: Saddam runs a neo-fascist, nihilistic death cult, and only appeasers would vote for doing nothing at all.

Those who mentioned the big O-word, the Halliburton contracts, Saudi Arabia, or the fact that we’d being arming Saddam/Bin Laden until relatively recently, were roundly dismissed by all sides of British punditry. Nobody questioned the “virtuous” motives of Western military action in the Middle East. Nobody questioned that, once British troops were in combat, all doubters must desist, so as not to damage morale among our lads abroad.

Just a month or so ago, it looked like the West was beginning to dismantle the War on Terror’s intellectual apparatus. Tony Blair had finally admitted that Iraq was a disaster; he even more or less admitted his culpability in the rise of Daesh. Serious commentators had long ago conceded the invasion stemmed from oil and great power politics, not weapons of mass destruction and human rights. Certainly, every remotely capable person knew that, whatever the motives, the result was an unholy mess. The only good thing anyone could say about Iraq was that it possibly wasn’t as bad as Afghanistan.

But now, there’s a new boldness and confidence among Britain’s liberal hawks. The hard-won consensus about imperial failure has been abandoned. Bombing for humanity is back. The evil to the East is more evil than ever before. The bombs will be administered with more bloodless laser-guided precision than ever before. British action will be targeted so as to avoid a prolonged occupation and military creep; mistakes just can’t possibly happen, because there’s a consensus that evil is evil. So there’s only upsides. And anyone who says differently is yet again appeasing a neo-fascist, nihilistic death cult.

You’ll forgive me for being angry.

In one respect, for Western liberal opinion, bombing Syria is safer than bombing Iraq. Whereas blitzing Baghdad provoked tactical disagreements, there is the appearance of global unanimity about the Daesh threat. It helps that, while there was no obvious link between Saddam and 9/11, the link between Daesh in Syria and the atrocity in Paris is clear-cut.

What’s less clear-cut, as even a Tory such as David Davis points out, are two key questions: “what is the political end game and what is the military plan to achieve it?” The disaster in Iraq was partly so acute because the West lacked a credible plan for a “democratic” aftermath. In the absence of a “democratic” vision for Iraq, at least neocons had some vision of what they wanted to achieve: albeit a somewhat absurd one of McDonald’s franchises and bikini-clad democracy. But what does political success look like in Syria? Does it involve Assad’s regime, who we were determined to bomb two years ago, or does it not? There’s no clarity from those who seem so bomb-happy.

Daesh has recruited 6,000 to 8,000 fighters since the US started bombing Syria a month ago. How many more if the bombing widens? Daesh emerged in the vacuum created by invading Iraq and bombing Assad. If we destroy Daesh, what unknown horror could replace it? That’s before we even begin to imagine the horror for Syrians, already brutalised by civil war. The voices we should be listening to are those in Raqqa, speaking out against the threat of more air strikes.

In military terms, Cameron promises the ground force will involve a 70,000 strong Syrian force that’s loyal to the West. But as Davis points out, “this 70,000 is probably a phantom army”. It involves forces loyal to Daesh and al Qaeda; there’s no guarantee that most of them, never mind all of them, will use Western air strikes to attack Daesh rather than Assad. Militarily and politically, the plan is a mess.

But you won’t hear any of this in the media. Nobody is picking these details apart. All you’ll hear is praise for how “presidential” and “accomplished” Cameron’s case for bombing appears, with a degree of sycophancy last heard when Nicholas Witchell narrated a Royal wedding. And Cameron’s poise and dignity, so we’re told, contrasts strongly with Labour’s “mess” under Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader has claimed, quite plausibly, that the case for bombing hasn’t been made. And you’d think British liberals would be once bitten, twice shy after backing disasters in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. But no. Instead, there’s a co-ordinated campaign to unseat Corbyn, led by the media and the displaced remnants of the Blair regime.

Labour members are apparently 75 per cent opposed to bombing. After being dragooned into backing so many disasters, who can blame them? However, in a victory for the party’s right-wing, Corbyn has been forced to compromise and allow his New Labourite parliamentary group a free vote. I admire Corbyn’s anti-war credentials, and I am angry at the war-loving faction in Labour once again. Corbyn supporters deserve better than this.

As the likes of John McTernan explain, Labour members’ opinions have to be sacrificed to a higher cause: the parliamentary party knows best. “Labour MPs at their most recent meeting treated Corbyn as if he was an incompetent supply teacher,” he explained proudly. “They talked over him, they barracked him, they were appalled by what he says and how he acts. The problem is that the Labour Party aspires to be a party of government, it aspires to represent all the voters in Britain. At the moment, Corbyn aspires to represent a tiny sliver of voters, the Labour members who support him.”

McTernan’s message is clear: regardless of what Labour’s members think, Labour is the party of “all the voters in Britain”, for which read Middle England swing voters and the red-top tabloids.

Syria now poses MPs a stark choice. Can Labour become a Corbyn party, a democratic and internationalist force that puts diplomacy and security first? Or is it a McTernan party, rushing heedlessly to the front of every latest imperial venture in the Middle East without stopping to consider consequences?

There’s no easy answer. A victory for the imperial wing will raise the democratic deficit again, the absence of viable opposition, and the potential break-up of Britain. A Corbyn victory could make Britain’s role as America’s junior partner unsustainable. For those who seriously care about Britain’s role in the world, either outcome is unthinkable. Sensible Labour MPs should ask themselves how their vote will look in six months’ time if we’re bogged down in another imperial misadventure. Their members have a sense of perspective; but do the politicians?

Jeremy Corbyn allows Labour MPs free vote on air strikes ... so RAF may be in Raqqa by Thursday

Right-wing voices add to chorus of opposition to UK bombing of Syria

Hundreds join 'emergency demos' to protest against plans for air strikes

Letters to The National, December 1: Corbyn's decision on free vote is a mistake

The National View: Corbyn’s refusal to lead will take Britain into war

Michael Gray: Bombing is the most dangerous strategy of all