Operation Featherweight: Month 16, Week 5, Day 2.

Today the UK Prime Minister David Cameron laid out to Parliament the case for conducting air-strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria as well as Iraq. This is seen as a precursor to a Parliamentary vote authorising those air-strikes which may occur as early as next Tuesday (1/12/15).

However there is still little guarantee that such an authorisation will be given or that a vote will even be called. That is because there remain very serious questions over whether Cameron can be trusted to act within the bounds of international law and whether there is the strategic vision needed for a successful campaign.

Throughout the past 16 months of this fight against ISIL the main problem has been that US President Barack Obama - the supposed Commander-in-Chief of the US-led coalition - does not view ISIL as an enemy. Instead he views them as a key strategic partner helping the US achieve it's goal of ridding the Middle-East of Shia Muslims.

Quite why ridding the Middle-East of Shia Muslims is a strategic objective of the US is something that we are all still waiting for Obama to explain.

This failure to recognise ISIL as an enemy to be defeated has caused Obama to tie himself up into all sorts of knots.

Take for example the torturous debate over the use of United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirlik in Turkey against ISIL. This has led to Obama making all sorts of ridiculous concessions to Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan and has been going on for so long that Erdogan changed jobs during.

Quite why Erdogan thinks that he has the right to refuse the use of a USAF base in an operation that has been authorised under Chapter 7 of the United Nations (UN) Charter is again something that we are all still waiting for Obama to explain.

The reason why Obama has become fixated on Incirlik is that it is much closer to both Iraq and Syria then the bases in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Jordan that the US is currently flying missions from. The theory being that the closer the airbases are to the targets the quicker the turnaround time meaning more targets can be attacked.

Putting aside the fact that the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - is currently operating at less then 10% of capacity if you look on Google Maps at either Camp Speicher which is just outside the Iraqi city of Tirkit or al-Baghdadi airbase which is just outside the Iraqi city of Fallujah the outdated aerial photographs actually show US aircraft lined up on the runways.

Therefore if Obama was serious about upping the volume of strikes against ISIL then he would use these bases and numerous other ones across Iraq rather then Incirlik.

Although he has yet to provide any explanation for his decision making I suspect that Obama would argue that in order to do this he would also have to send in force protection troops to protect those aircraft on the ground as Russia has done in Syria. This would violate his pledge of; "No Boots on the Ground."

However this is an entirely false argument because Obama has already deployed ground forces in Iraq in violation of that pledge. At al-Baghdadi airbase in particular have not only been deployed but have also engaged in combat there.

So effectively Obama has already deployed force protection troops to these bases. He is simply refusing to the deploy a force for them to protect.

The real reason why Obama is refusing to allow aircraft to operate from within Iraq is because to do so would massively increase the effectiveness of the operation quickly liberating Iraqi territory from ISIL. As I've said Obama does not want to see that happen because he still views ISIL as an ally.

Obama's conduct in Syria has been even worse. There he's not involved in a war against ISIL. Instead he has been involved in a marketing exercise.

Although they first invaded Iraq in December 2013 it was not until August of 2014 and the genocide of the Yezidi in Sinjar/Shingal that the world's media was no longer able to turn a blind eye to ISIL's horrors.

With the "ISIL" brand poisoned in the eyes of the public Obama put on a big show of flying lots of planes over Syria and bombing the occasional patch of desert.

However this was merely a distraction while Obama poured resources into other groups so they could continue the job of ridding the Middle-East of Shia Muslims only under a brand name that was more acceptable to the public.

The two main groups that have been supported are the Al Nusra Front (ANF) who are affiliated with Al Qaeda and listed alongside ISIL in the Chapter 7 resolution and the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML). Together with some other smaller groups they are known as the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition.

The Army of Conquest share ISIL's ideology and is every bit as brutal as ISIL. They have in the past fought alongside ISIL particularly against the Yamouk camp for Palestinian refugees in Damascus and the 2015 Northwestern Syria offensive which allowed ISIL to seize control of the ancient city of Palmyra.

Aside from being allied with ISIL the Army of Conquest - particularly the FML branch - is allied with Turkey. For example when on August 9th (9/8/15) Erdogan ordered FML to cede the town of Marea to ISIL that is exactly what they did.

The hope being that this would provide a pre-text for a formal Turkish invasion of Syria to re-establish the supply lines with ISIL that had been cut the the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) - a group that Erdogan is forbidding CJTFOIR from assisting.

That brings me rather neatly onto the current tense stand-off between Turkey and Russia over the shooting down - by Turkey - of a Russian Su-24 in Syria on Tuesday (24/11/15).

Yesterday (25/11/15) Turkey released two versions of recordings of warnings it alleges to have sent to this aircraft. The first was released by a Turkish news channel while the second was released by the Turkish military. They differ substantially meaning the version released by the news channel was fake.

This obviously could have been intended as a talking point about the fake Syrian passports that the attackers in Paris on November 13th (13/11/15) used to disguise themselves a refugees. However I've had contact with that particular news channel before so think that is unlikely.

What is interesting about the Turkish military recordings is that they reveal the warnings were issued on what is known as the "Guard" frequency. Designated by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) this is an public, unencrypted radio channel for use in emergencies.

As it is public, unencrypted and known by all it is inappropriate for communication between Russian and CJTFOIR aircraft over Syria. This is why the two nations went through a lengthy negotiation process to establish a dedicated frequency under the October 20th (20/10/15)  Memorandum of Understand (MOU).

As a CJTFOIR member Turkey would have been fully aware that the Guard frequency was not being used and therefore was not being monitored by the Russian aircraft.

Therefore Erdogan's claim that warnings were issued is a bit like a man whose phoned his doctor being unable to understand why his pizza hasn't been delivered.

As I've said before the issue of whether a warning was issued is irrelevant. This procedure for this type of situation is well established - particularly with Turkish military aircraft violating Greek air-space 2,244 time in 2014 alone.

The intercepting aircraft must establish radio contact. They must then issue a warning followed by instructions and wait for those instructions to be followed. If it is unable to establish radio contact it must establish visual contact to make sure the intercepted aircraft isn't suffering from a broken radio or that the pilots have been incapacitated.

Once the intercepting aircraft has established visual contact it must the determine that the intercepted aircraft poses a direct and imminent threat.

If at any point the intercepted aircraft leaves the air-space there is no longer any right to intercept. There is certainly no right to follow it into the sovereign air-space of another country.

Regardless of whether it was issued to the Russian aircraft or not the first Turkish radio message lasted 15 seconds. Two seconds later the aircraft left Turkish air-space.

Where Turkey has got confused in all this is that it views Syria to be part of Turkey.

As such it sees the shooting down of the Russian aircraft as legitimate to protect Turkish forces operating in the Latakia mountains. These Turkish forces operate under the name; "Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB)."

The STB is sometimes also referred to as the "Moderate Syrian Opposition." However from their machine gunning of the Russian pilots as they parachuted to the ground and their attacks on medical helicopters sent to rescue I think we know how 'moderate' they are.

Tuesday's (24/11/15) incident also gave us a clearer picture of just how Syrian the STB are. The spokesman they put forward to speak to the media has been identified as Alpaslan Celik. Not only is he Turkish he is the son of the Mayor of a Turkish city representing the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Therefore while I understand the urgent need to defeat ISIL and have understood it for more then 16 months now I remain hesitant giving the UK government permission to bomb Syria until they have indicated that they understand these problems and have some idea of how to solve them.

If they don't then not only will any military action be wholly illegal it will also be doomed to certain failure.

I would of course be reassured if the UK used it's NATO membership to ensure that Article 5 is invoked in response to the Paris Massacres. This would help to underline to Turkey that is simply does not have an option here.

I would also like to see the UK use it's seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC) pass a resolution condemning Turkish attacks on anti-ISIL forces on Syria and Iraq. This would show me that Cameron finally understands that Article 51 (self-defence) cannot apply when a Chapter 7 resolution is already in effect.

Making Turkey aware of this legal reality should also further underline to them - and sadly Obama - that they simply do not have the option of supporting ISIL and associated forces.

I would also be reassured if the UK were to formally designate the YPG and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition they operate as part as allies in the fight against ISIL. They are of course a predominately Sunni Muslim force.

17:45 on 26/11/15 (UK date).

Edited at around 19:20 on 26/11/15 (UK date) to add;

Based on the evening news shows the big talking point about today's debate was a claim by Cameron that there are 70,000 moderate forces in Syria prepared to fight ISIL

The SDF has a strength of 64,000. Although I certainly do not share Cameron's optimism about the Free Syrian Army (FSA) I don't doubt that another 6,000 moderates can be found.

Therefore it goes back to the question of whether we will support the SDF or follow Erdogan's orders that we treat them as enemies and ISIL as allies?