British jets hit ISIS in Syria after Parliament authorizes strikes

LONDON — The British Parliament on Wednesday authorized airstrikes in Syria against the Islamic State, in a vote that became a wider test of British willingness to play an active role in international affairs, and British warplanes made their first attacks hours later.

Early Thursday, the Defense Ministry said that four Tornado jets took off from the Akrotiri Royal Air Force Base in Cyprus and returned to base safely after carrying out airstrikes, according to British news media reports. The ministry did not provide specific details of the airstrikes.

The vote, after months of wrangling, hand-wringing and a daylong parliamentary debate, underscored the concerted efforts of Prime Minister David Cameron, whose Conservative Party has a majority in Parliament, to restore Britain's reputation as a serious global actor.

"The threat is very real," Cameron said of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, on Wednesday, as he opened the debate in the House of Commons. "The question is this: Do we work with our allies to degrade and destroy this threat?"

In the end, British lawmakers opted to try to do so, voting by 397-223 to go along with Cameron's plan, despite some forceful speeches against the strikes.

The run-up to the vote also amounted to a low point for Jeremy Corbyn, the new leader of the opposition Labour Party. While Corbyn opposes British military action over Syria, some of Labour's senior figures, including the party's spokesman on foreign affairs, Hilary Benn, supported it, and Corbyn was forced to allow his lawmakers to vote freely on the issue in an effort to avoid a intraparty clash amid threatened resignations.

In an impassioned speech that won a rousing reception Wednesday night, Benn argued that "every state has the right to defend itself" and asked "why would we not uphold the settled will of the United Nations?"

His contribution to the debate appeared to have helped Cameron secure the "clear majority" in the parliamentary vote that he said he was seeking.

While there are serious questions about the extent to which British airstrikes would make a difference in the fight against the Islamic State — the military is already conducting strikes against the militants in Iraq — the issue has always been more about alliance solidarity and leadership than about strict military or strategic utility.

"It will not make a big operational difference," said Malcolm Chalmers of the Royal United Services Institute, a research organization specializing in security.

"It is important symbolically, useful operationally, but not transformative," he said. "A willingness to deploy will allay the concern that the U.K. is not a reliable partner."

In his first term, as head of a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, Cameron earned a reputation for lack of interest in foreign policy that seemed to contradict Britain's history, or its status as a nuclear power and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

After Britain joined France's military intervention in 2011, with NATO support, to overthrow Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, resulting in considerable chaos in North Africa, Cameron appeared to pull back from military action.

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While France fought Islamic radicals in Mali, bombed the Islamic State in Syria and made a diplomatic push seeking to resolve the Ukraine crisis with Russia, Cameron lost a parliamentary vote in 2013 seeking to authorize military action against President Bashar Assad of Syria for his use of chemical weapons.

And despite hosting the 2014 NATO summit meeting in Wales, where he led pledges to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on the military, Cameron was reluctant to follow through, citing a need to reduce Britain's national deficit. The failure to honor the 2 percent commitment caused enormous friction with the Obama administration, and regular U.S. demands — quietly in public but very loudly in private — that Britain keep its word.

After winning a surprising but narrow majority in the general election in May, however, Cameron moved to restore Britain's reputation on the global stage and to play a more visible role in foreign policy.

He found the resources to commit to the 2 percent threshold, committed to buying F-35 fighter jets and maritime patrol planes for Britain's new aircraft carriers, and vowed to renew Britain's submarine-based nuclear deterrent. He is now seeking to follow through on his promise to expand airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Cameron has announced an increase in military spending in real terms of 3 percent over the next four years, including for special forces, intelligence gathering and a doubling of Britain's drone fleet.

Nevertheless, after the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Britons remain wary about involvement in Syria, and Cameron has had to spend considerable effort cajoling lawmakers — including in his own party — to support him.

"This is not 2003," Cameron said while opening the parliamentary debate Wednesday. "We must not use past mistakes as an excuse for indifference or inaction."

Britain's "reputation as a serious world player was damaged by the defense cuts announced in 2010 and by the parliamentary vote to refuse military force in 2013," Chalmers of the Royal United Services Institute said. For one former minister, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, "symbolism is more important than the effect."

"We are already at war, and the Rubicon was crossed a long time ago," the former minister argued, referring to the air campaign in Iraq and adding that Cameron "has found it very embarrassing that Britain is not at the top table."

Cameron has argued that British military action in Iraqi airspace alone makes no sense, as the Islamic State does not recognize the Iraq-Syria border and the militants have their headquarters in Syria.

He has also said that further military action was necessary to stem terrorist acts like the ones that struck Paris on Nov. 13, leaving 130 dead, and that it would be an essential component of any diplomatic solution to the Syrian civil war, which has displaced up to half that country's population.