The Coalition might deride Labor's push for more humanitarian aid in the Middle East, but a visiting terrorism expert says humanitarian efforts are a crucial part of the fight against Islamic State, writes Karen Middleton.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is enjoying a good laugh at Labor counterpart Tanya Plibersek's expense.

"She wants our fighter jets to drop food hampers over Syria," Bishop railed in Parliament yesterday. "Guess who will end up feasting on them? It will be a terrorist picnic."

But Plibersek is not alone in calling for a greater humanitarian effort in Syria and its surrounds.

Global terrorism expert Dr Audrey Kurth Cronin, currently visiting Australia, is also urging the United States and its allies to boost their support for refugees from the conflict in Iraq and Syria who are fleeing to neighbouring countries.

The former academic director of studies in the Changing Character of War program at Oxford University and former adviser to US legislators, now at George Mason University in the US, is in Canberra this week at the invitation of the Australian Army.

The University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy hosted a breakfast seminar with her at Parliament House yesterday.

Her message in relation to the organisation calling itself Islamic State, also known as Daesh, was unmistakeable:

I think providing a lot more resources in a humanitarian framework would be a good thing to do.

Late last week, Plibersek called for a boost to aid in the region:

Primarily, our assistance should be humanitarian. We have a much greater humanitarian responsibility in Syria. With 11.5 million people displaced, with millions in neighbouring countries like Jordan, like Lebanon, like Turkey, we should be doing more to help. But we've actually reduced our assistance to Syrian refugees.

Dr Cronin argues it will be those driven out of Syria and Iraq who will undermine IS eventually - provided they receive support to remain in the region:

They're going to have more likelihood of getting back into control if they're living nearby than they are if they travel to Europe or for that matter Australia.

In other words, supporting them there would also help stop them needing to come here - something that fits with the Government's immigration objectives.

Dr Cronin argues that providing more aid would have multiple benefits: helping reinforce the likes of Jordan and Lebanon against IS attack and changing the "story" of the US' involvement to reduce local suspicion and make it more effective:

Particularly in Jordan, I think the United States should be engaging in some shock-and-awe use of resources to support those refugees and displaced peoples as a way to turn around the narrative, the story of what we're doing. If it's very, very clear we're helping people no matter what their ethnic foundation and background and identity - unlike IS - I think that will say something dramatic.

She believes Syria will remain "an extremely serious problem" for many years, arguing that's all the more reason for a longer-term humanitarian response, including setting up schools:

I know we can provide more resources. And ultimately we're putting so many resources into training a small number of Syrian rebel fighters. That hasn't been going so well. And it's been extraordinarily expensive.

But she doesn't advocate an end to military action. On the contrary, Dr Cronin argues the US and its allies should stop treating IS/Daesh as a terrorist organisation.

She believes it has moved beyond that:

I don't think we have any choice but to realise that Daesh has to be contained as a conventional threat ... and it's not going to be possible to use counter terrorism to destroy it, especially in the short term.

An expert in the trajectory of terrorist groups, Dr Cronin knows what she's talking about. Her book How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns was published in 2009.

But lest the Labor Opposition rest too easily on her remarks, Dr Cronin's warning about the need for conventional warfare means Labor has a decision to make.

Labor's bipartisan support for military action against IS has limits. ( Reuters )

Its bipartisan support for the military action against IS has limits, including that it will only endorse air strikes in Iraq and not in Syria.

Initially, that point of differentiation was theoretical.

But if, as looks likely, the Prime Minister is about to expand Australia's area of operations, the Opposition has to choose: abandon its caveat and continue with bipartisan support for the action against IS or dig in, oppose strikes in Syria and expose itself to bombardment for "going soft on terrorists" from a Government desperately looking for any way to improve its standing with the electorate.

In that event, Dr Cronin's assessment that IS should no longer be described that way will probably be conveniently overlooked.

But both sides could do worse than listen to her logic on the kind of enemy they really face - and how to fight it.

Karen Middleton is a freelance journalist and long-time member of the parliamentary Press Gallery.