IS Or Daesh? It's A Pointless Name Game

If ever there was an example of the sometimes pointless hot air generator that the House of Commons can sometimes disintegrate into, this must have been it. The PM said that he had complained to the BBC that the broadcaster has referred to "the Islamic State" and that this was worse even than "so-called Islamic State" (the term Sky News uses). We should rather refer to the so-called Islamic State as Da’esh, the PM said.

The terror group doesn't like the term, apparently. Which is odd because it's the Arabic acronym of "ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fī 'l-ʿIrāq wa-sh-Shām" (which should therefore be Da’ish?)

It means the Islamic State in Iraq and Shams (greater Syria). In other letters, ISIS or ISIL if you translate Shams as "the Levant".

Aside from the Prime Minister’s temerity in telling the BBC how it should speak English, this is a terrific 'so what?' amid the wider debate about how to destroy the death cult - a term that while pejorative seems to have gained currency since Sky News started using it more than a year ago.

Da’ish/IS/ISIL/ISIS - an organisation dedicated to an apocalyptic vision of the future in which the planet is burned to ash in a final end-time war ahead of a messianic redemption - manipulated "young men half in love with death" to go the whole way, and uses spectacular slaughter to political ends.

It is therefore a death cult. Muslims often say it is not Islamic and it’s not, as it claims 'The Caliphate'. So we tend to dance around those labels to avoid giving the cult any legitimacy.

But this is a debate only slightly as hollow as the marathon expositions over bombing in Syria in the Commons.

What is being debated is a tactical shift to expand the area of operations of the RAF from Iraq into Syria - in line with our key allies France and the USA.

It makes no military sense to have had limited operations in the first place, as experts have been saying for 14 months.

There is the issue of whether there are ground troops available to take the cult on. The PM has now explained, just about, that the 70,000 he said were available from the ranks of rebels would be freed up to exploit the coalition airstrikes after a ceasefire between those very rebels and the regime of Bashar al Assad.

He said that a deal could be reached in six months and that he hoped for a full transition of power in Damascus in 18 months.

That may be wishful thinking but diplomats close to the talks have been giving out consistently optimistic vibrations.

This development is new, and exciting - perhaps more important that what was going on in the Commons.

He didn’t admit that the 70,000 would not be available until a ceasefire. But argued that in the meantime airstrikes by the RAF, added to those of his allies, would not do any harm but would help to put the cult on its back hooves.

This is self-evidently true - the cult has been held back from overrunning Baghdad and been driven out of Kurdish areas by a combination of air and ground operations.

Air operations can also target the cult's command and control structures, its industrial base in oil, and logistics generally.

The UK is already at the top of the country list for attack by the cult's fellow travellers so it will not make much difference whether or not RAF operations are expanded into Syria.

So why the 150 members who wanted to speak in the Commons in a debate of no tactical importance, but little strategic significance of great note?

"Sometimes in this House we get carried away with the theatricals of this place," Jeremy Corbyn said.