As much as we hope that if we ignore what is happening in the Middle East it won’t affect us – it will. As recent events show, neither Islamic State nor refugees are being contained within the region.

Isis is disappointed that refugees are not moving to the territory it controls. Refugees are voting with their feet, fleeing the barrel bombings of Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime, and seeking refuge outside the country. They seek stability and a normal environment in which to live – a future of hope, not Isis’s apocalyptic future.

The attacks in Paris were designed to provoke retaliation against European Muslims, and consequently more recruits for its “caliphate”. For Isis wants to add greater credence to its claim that the west is at war with Islam. The UK cannot let this narrative succeed. Isis will continue to try to launch attacks against the UK whether or not we are involved in the air campaigns in Iraq and Syria. Grievances against Britain go back a century, and do not simply stem from the UK’s ill-advised participation in the 2003 Iraq war.

That conflict tipped the regional balance of power in Iran’s favour. It triggered a geopolitical struggle between Iran, on the one hand, and Saudi and the Gulf States and Turkey, on the other, which led to their supporting different extreme sectarian actors across the region, turning local grievances over poor governance into regional proxy wars. A quarter of a million Syrians have been killed and half the country displaced from their homes. This will have an impact on the security of the region - and the UK - for decades .

The traumatic experience of the Iraq war has clouded our ability to formulate effective policy to deal with the current situation in Syria. Peace does not come through passivity. It requires action. The longer the civil wars in the region rage, the worse it gets, and the narrower our policy options are.

One of the main lessons we should draw from Iraq is that there is no military solution to the war in Syria, but military actions can help shape the political environment and create room for greater diplomatic action. Isis needs to be defeated ideologically and militarily. Its power and appeal depends on its ability to “endure and expand”. Isis arose from the ashes of al-Qaeda in Iraq due to the breakdown of inclusive politics. The tragedy is that after the colossal mistakes at the beginning of the war, the US succeeded in midwifing the emergence of such a political order 2007-2009 - only for it to unravel when the US disengaged. Isis was also able to gain a territorial base in Syria due to the chaos of the civil war. Assad deliberately sought to ensure Isis became the dominant opposition group in order to undermine the legitimacy of opposition to his brutal rule. Russia and Iranian support for Asad has strengthened his regime - but has had little impact on Isis.

We can only have influence if we are invested. Let us not wait for the next attack on British soil before we are spurred to action. The UK should join the air campaign to degrade Isis and provide air cover to local forces fighting Isis. And we should then help those groups negotiate an end to the civil war with Asad. We need to help set the conditions so that Sunnis in Iraq and Syria feel less disenfranchised – and willing and able to defeat Isis. They cannot, and will not, do it without the west. We need to show the Syrian people that the choices facing them are not simply Isis or Assad.

The Vienna talks provide the start of a potential political framework to help agree ceasefires at the local level; and to plan for the future of Syria with decentralised governance, protection of minorities, and power-sharing at the national level.

Military interventions have unintended consequences. But, as we are witnessing, western disengagement can also have devastating consequences. Isis is a symptom of deep pathologies in the Middle East. We need to work with our Western allies and local partners to create a better balance of power in the region, in particular between Saudi and Iran; to end the civil wars which are so destabilising the Middle East; and to set incentives for regimes to reform to better address the deep social, economic and political problems their countries are facing.

The choice is stark. If we, and our allies, do not work to promote the sort of world we want to live in, non-state actors and states hostile to our interests will fill the vacuum left by the withdrawal of western powers. And we will be left to wonder how the post-world war commitment to peace, which we fought so hard to create, unravelled.