Either collectively in Jeddah or in one-on-one meetings with Kerry as in Cairo, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Lebanon all have baulked at making explicit military commitments to confront a force that they all see as a direct threat to their thrones, bunkers and, in one or two cases, tissue-thin democracies. With the exception of Iraq, which has no option because it is under attack at home, none has publicly committed military support. Tony Abbott speaks of Australia's military plans with the Chief of Defence, Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, in Darwin on Sunday. Credit:Office of the Prime Minister Conversely, Abbott was coy in claiming that this new deployment did not mean that Australia was at war. Australia has been at war since its first airlift of weapons and ammunition to the Kurdish Peshmerga in the north of Iraq last week. Because they are on the ground in the UAE doing logistics and maintenance or in Baghdad and Irbil as military advisers certainly would not absolve any of them from being a target if IS fighters contrived to get access to them. The deployment is an escalation from the other side of the world that likely will put the IS madmen on the lookout for Australian targets. It's also a dramatic instance of mission-creep in a conflict bedevilled by uncertainty and missing any clear sense of a timeline or even the vague contours of what "victory" might look like.

US President Barack Obama demanded that Iraq form an inclusive, representative government before he would commit. But just three days after the new prime minister said he would behave himself, Obama had aircraft over Iraq, and we still know nothing about how different this Iraqi leadership will be from the last. There is no certainty that it will win the confidence of the Iraqi Sunni tribes. Search for allies: US Secretary of State John Kerry confers with Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud in Jeddah on Thursday. Credit:AFP An air war cannot succeed without a substantial boots-on-the-ground accompaniment – and that part of what Obama calls a strategy is very much on a wing and a prayer. The Kurdish Peshmerga can fight, but they can't defend all of Iraq. The Iraqi army, trained and equipped by Washington at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, is erratic and more likely to cut and run than to stand and fight. Next door in Syria, Obama is banking of the ranks of the Free Syrian Army – which for years he has complained could not be counted on, and which Washington now tries to convince us can be taken to Saudi Arabia, retrained and sent home to win the war. David Haines, a British man reportedly executed by Islamic State militants.

More than a decade trying to wave a magic wand over the security forces of Iraq and Afghanistan should have convinced the White House that relying on these newly trained forces qualifies for dismissal under the Obama dictum of "don't do stupid stuff!" Abbott must have had his hands over his ears last week as Obama spoke to the US nation and analysts around the globe distilled his words to mean a conflict that will last for years. Loading Oddly, the Prime Minister warned Australians to prepare for a fight that might last "months rather than weeks, perhaps many, many months indeed…" Seems he's in as much of a hurry to get into this war, as he seemingly thinks he will get out of it. It's not clear why. This "we must do something right now" response is likely to create a bigger mess than already exists in the region. Consider: the death of 200,000 locals in Syria failed to rouse much of a reaction in the West; but the deaths of two Americans – and now a Briton – has raised a crescendo for international war when it might have made more sense to tackle regional politicking and feuding first.