Though the government has precipitated another rush into military action, it has not yet constructed a realistic long-term strategy to destroy Daesh/Isis. On a recent visit to Middle Eastern capitals with the foreign affairs select committee, the officials we met were concerned we risk making the same mistakes as we made in our previous military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan (post-2006) and Libya.

All the previous military interventions were ill fated from the outset, because of the lack of a comprehensive plan coupled with a dearth of local knowledge and history. Initial hopes that a modicum of “nation-building” would lead to the birth of western-style democracies met their doom. On each occasion, we vastly underestimated the complexities of local politics, the difficulty of achieving our aims, and the resources we would require. Sadly, from the prime minister’s response to the foreign affairs committee’s report on Syria last week, there is little sign we have learned these painful and costly lessons.

That the government accepts that airstrikes alone will not destroy Isis is positive. Isis has been on the receiving end of bombs dropped by an international coalition for over a year, to little apparent effect. Territorial reverses in some areas have been answered by gains in others. The addition of British bombs would add little. Indeed, as our Middle Eastern hosts have pointed out, there is no shortage of aircraft over Syria, but instead a shortage of targets. Many coalition aircraft fly in aerial “roundabouts” over Iraq and Syria, and return to base with their weapons unused.

Any successful strategy to destroy Isis hinges on there being a component of ground troops. Here the government makes the assumption that there are 70,000 Syrian moderates willing to take the fight to the organisation. While on our visit, we were reminded that, after nearly five years of conflict, there are precious few “moderates” in Syria. They do not form a coherent group; and, as the Americans found to their cost, they tend to be as liable to fight each other as they are to fight the extremists. The government has forgotten the lessons of Libya, where the anti-Gaddafi forces splintered into a thousand militias the moment the common enemy was defeated. A fresh civil war has been a result. Syria would be similar, but on a grand scale.

In any case, a feature of the Syrian civil war has been the speed at which new groups and organisations can spring from the shadows and stake their claim to support, legitimacy and territory. It is a bold assumption that the government’s strategy would prevent this, and the risks should be obvious that military intervention would merely clear the field for the next wave of extremists. We are all encouraged by the Vienna talks, but we are a long way off any lasting political solution.

The prime minister’s strategy is also notable for being heavy on emotion. We all sympathise with the French after the terrible attacks in Paris, and are mindful that such outrages could easily happen here, but we serve no purpose by allowing our thinking to be cloyed. When emotions run high, people tend to make mistakes. If parliament votes to intervene in Syria, it should not be in “solidarity” with our French partners – they know our sympathies are with them in any case.

Nor should MPs feel the urge to intervene out of fear of losing our place at the “top table”. China is not contemplating military action in Syria, but is represented in the Vienna talks nevertheless as a permanent member of the United Nations. As a fellow member of the P5, it is inconceivable that Britain would not be included in the diplomatic negotiations to resolve the Syrian civil war.

On other fronts, too little has so far been done to counter Isis’s business and financial links, which render it one of the richest terrorist organisations in history. Equally, much more needs to be done to disrupt its presence in cyberspace, which it has used to great effect.

More broadly, there needs to be more detail as to how the government plans to neutralise the poisonous ideology that forms the root cause of Isis and other extremist groups worldwide. This will be a long-term effort, and we need to work alongside our friends and allies to put a stopper on the kind of narratives that Isis and its ilk feed upon – and which have spurred many of our recent military interventions.

All in all, I remain deeply unconvinced by the prime minister’s case for intervention in Syria, and will oppose it in the forthcoming parliamentary vote. As one considers our previous interventions, a strong pattern emerges. Time and time again, the executive makes a “convincing” case, often with supporting intelligence sources; time and time again, it turns out to be wrong. Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe that this time will be the exception that proves the rule.