to think the UK should not get involved militarily with wars in the middle east?

[DecisionsDecisionss]

Controversial subject, but I don't understand why the UK is getting involved again militarily in the middle east. I'm not expert, but Afghanistan seems to be a corrupt mess even after the war there and Iraq is looking awful. I understand that Christians and other religions are being persecuted and killed by Islamic State, but isn't bombing them just making it worse? Islamic State are despicable, but I don't see more war as a long term solution, is it not better to focus on diplomacy and sanctions and dropping aid to those in need? Also decent deterrents to UK jihaddists like life in prison?

I don't think any more UK servicemen and women should be sent to war, perhaps if we were less involved then we'd be less at risk of jihaddists in the UK too. Aibu and maybe I'm not understanding it fully, please enlighten me.

"We cannot sit back and do nothing."
"The long term solution? I wish we knew the answer."

I'm always a bit worried when the reasoning goes "We must do something. This is something. Therefore we must do this"

Unless there is a clear idea of what the long term solution/s would be like, it might be too soon to act. This group flourished in Syria. What is needed there to prevent them continuing to flourish?

It's a tough one. I want us to stay well out of it, the last 15 years should have taught us that military intervention has been a spectacular failure and indeed sowed the seeds of the current ISIS situation, so more military intervention seems like the very definition of madness. The fact that ISIS are baiting us to fight them makes me further concerned about giving them what they want. That said, the west is motivated to keep the oil flowing. That's it really, it's the only reason the middle east matters and it's the only reason the west keeps engaging in the madness.

I'm cynical and highly doubtful that the west will get a chance to not be at war in some form or another in the middle east until the oil runs out or we develop better forms of energy on a mass scale. So I guess we are looking at the next 20-30 years of ongoing conflict. The saddest part is that it will seem normal to us, just the status quo as we get war-fatigue of the endless coverage.