Syria

We must learn the lesson of Iraq.

We have a greater strategic interest in shoring up the current secular regime in Syria, which might be nasty but is no threat to us, than in removing it, in which event it would be replaced with a regime which was at least as nasty and did pose a threat to us.

Those are the options. There is no Third Way. An Islamist state with a Mediterranean coastline, anyone? Mind you, there's already Turkey.

Syria is bad, but there are worse, including in the Middle East, where, bizarrely and disgracefully, we are particularly fond of them - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates...