Please, Cameron – no moral grandstanding over Iraq

If there’s a bright spot in the murky mess of Iraq, it’s that finally we have a war that it is impossible to paint in simple terms, as a battle of good against evil. This time, even our PM, the self-appointed heir to Blair, can’t grandstand about defeating ‘terror’ or protecting ‘innocent civilians’ because there’s terror and innocence on every side. He can’t pose as world policeman; stand side by side with Obama and say ‘we must not let this evil happen’, because clearly we already have.

Take ISIS, the Islamist group once affiliated to al-Qa’eda who’ve become the world’s new public enemy number one. ISIS have captured parts of northeast Syria and Iraq, and have begun to eye up Baghdad. They’re into beheading and stoning, even crucifying civilians, and under other circumstances it’d be tempting for both Obama and Cameron to paint them as the very apex of evil and the antithesis of all the West holds dear.