The Isis danger is all too real and Britain can't beat it alone

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/03/isis-danger-britain-david-cameron

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On the day when parliament reassembled this week, David Cameron said something so arresting to MPs about the jihadi threat from the Islamic caliphate that I had to go away and check it in Hansard the next day. But Cameron had indeed said exactly what I thought I heard him say.

Here's what he said: "On Friday, the independent joint terrorism analysis centre increased the threat level in the UK from substantial to severe, and we now believe that at least 500 people have travelled from Britain to fight in the region, in addition to 700 from France, 400 from Germany and hundreds more from countries including America, Canada, Austria, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands and Australia." The bit about the threat level got all the coverage. The bit about the jihadis was rarely quoted.

Everyone is familiar with the very British bad habit of sometimes talking about global threats as though the UK is uniquely vulnerable to them. It's a habit that is often given a specially solipsistic thrust by the British media's tendency to hysteria. Immigration, for example, has long been treated in this way. It's always all about us.

Something similar also occurs when the spotlight falls on jihadi terrorism. The murder of James Foley set off a massive bout of soul-searching, which is still going on this week and which has now been given fresh impetus by the murder of Steven Sotloff and the confirmation that the so-called caliphate has British hostages in its cells too.

But the British soul-searching about jihadis is just as solipsistic as the argument about migration. The current focus is all on the threat to Britain from returnees and on the involvement in the desert conflict of British Muslims such as the man absurdly dubbed Jihadi John. The revelation that there is now at least one British hostage in Isis hands will only reinforce this narrative. Wednesday's prime minister's questions focused overwhelmingly on this. The poor old Middle East thus gets treated almost as an afterthought. The rest of the world barely rates a moment's attention.

Yet Cameron's figures were the bit that should make us all sit up. Yes, the fact that 500 mad, bad and alienated British Muslims have headed out to Syria and Iraq is exceptionally serious. Yes, their return is a threat against which we must guard. Yes, the stream of radicalisation that led to it needs to be dammed. Yes, the state should prevent the jihadis from blowing us up in our shopping centres and trains or from beheading us on our own streets. That's precisely what the state exists to do.

But the jihadist threat isn't a uniquely British problem. As Cameron's figures show so powerfully, it's a shared one. The jihadi numbers are even greater in France and almost as large in Germany. Then there's the "hundreds more" from the other countries that Cameron listed. Put it all together and Europe has nurtured a minimum of a couple of thousand jihadi vipers in its collective bosom, of whom possibly no more than a quarter are British. Bad enough, yes, but definitely not the whole story.

Let us be clear about what this implies in relation to the Iraq war. If today's eruption of jihadism was fundamentally about retribution for the Iraq war, then you would not expect many of the jihadis to come from France, which so spectacularly refused to join the US and UK in toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003. Nor from Germany, which proudly sent no forces to Iraq. Nor from any of the other countries in Cameron's list other than the US and Australia. The Iraq war was wrong. It has helped to facilitate the jihadism. But this isn't about the Iraq war now. It's the jihadis who are to blame, not Tony Blair.

It is time, in other words, to cooperate with others and treat the jihadi caliphate as what it actually is. It is a real threat, a horrible one, above all to the people of the region, but also to any state and anyone it thinks it can attack – which definitely includes Britain. It has to be stopped, pushed back, broken up and generally disrupted by nations acting together. Britain has a role in this, which it would be irresponsible not to play. But the key issue for Britain is the nature of that role.

The proximity of the general election gives all of this an extra political charge. It is central to Cameron's election strategy to show himself as a strong leader whom it would be risky to replace with Ed Miliband. The temptation to make sweeping pre-election promises to act tough, banish undesirables, remove rights and rough up the lawyers and judges is doubtless very strong, especially with Ukip menacing the Tory vote. Yet give Cameron his due. Although he often talks a bigger game than he can play, he is not a leader with messianic tendencies. Give the Liberal Democrats their due too – they have stood up for the rule of law and blocked some of the more reckless Tory ideas.

Cameron used some good words this week. The approach should be "tough, intelligent, patient and comprehensive". That ought to mean studying and learning about the threat, doing focused and proportionate things that work, doing them with others, often keeping ourselves in the background, doing them forcefully but avoiding doing unnecessary harm, and sticking stubbornly to the task, frequently working in secret. It means the security services and special forces are bound to be near the heart of this, however problematic that may be. But that's better than leading the charge in a military conflict. And it is better than doing clumsily repressive things at home that could be recruiting sergeants for new jihadis.

In fact, with occasional false starts and much grinding of gears, this may be the approach towards which the UK government is finding its way. The appetite for playing a big military role is limited, as is the UK's ability to do so. These are tests of the great alliances and international institutions, not of Britain alone.

But Cameron's instinct for action against the caliphate is right. At home, the initial enthusiasm for removing UK jihadis' citizenships and passports has now run up against legal realities and obligations that cannot simply be wished away. But there will be tough decisions all the same. Even without any new anti-terrorism powers, the returning jihadis will face prosecutions of some kind. And those 2,000 young jihadis are potentially 2,000 more life prisoners in the jails of Europe, ours included, for decades to come.