After the post-World War II decolonisation process, Britain has been in dread of foreign entanglements. The memory of misadventure in Suez still rankles. So do the recent misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tony Blair, the Labour leader, who was instrumental in getting Britain sucked up in Iraq and Afghanistan, is still struggling to get his name cleared from a number of inquiries set up to investigate his decision to go to war over Iraq.

Against this background, Britain is set to engage itself yet again in another foreign adventure in Syria with the full blessing of the British Parliament when David Cameron, the Conservative Prime Minister, put the motion to the house on Wednesday.

Like the Iraq War, the country is split down the middle. The overhang of three misadventures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya has characterised the current debate.

In 2013, the Prime Minister David Cameron was stopped in track to bomb Syria when his motion to bomb Assad was defeated. But the attacks on Paris and the subsequent request of France to join its retaliatory bombing mission in Syria has afforded a new lease of life to the pro-war elements in media and political parties -- despite a large bulk of the population opposed to fresh new entanglements in the quagmire of the Middle East. This further bout of bombing is being solicited despite the futility of bombing of the ISIS by the US and France, with Canada and Australia having recently withdrawn their contributions.

According to Patrick Cockburn, one of the seasoned watchers of the rise of the ISIS, has pointed to the ineffectiveness of the US bombing strategy with a view to reducing the ISIS. Yet the rush to war and retaliatory mood is so strong that the post-Iraq caution is thrown to the winds.

Knowing the western half-hearted response to the ISIS, Russia decided to take on the ISIS at the invitation of Assad last September. This further muddied the scene.

France, predictably, is more gung-ho about the muscular response and has duly intensified attacks on Syria. Among the western bombing coalition, France is the most outspoken critic of Assad and keen to take him out without paying any heed to the post-Assad scenario.

At the same time, France is the most avowedly secular country with little patience for religious extremist outfits, such as the ISIS. This dual policy of hitting both protagonists without medium and long-term alternative, coherent strategy may create more problems once the bombing euphoria abates. The overwhelmingly retaliatory western response has been to be both anti-Assad and anti-ISIS with no B-plan which will fill the vacuum in the event of both of them being decimated.

These complex issues have not only divided the public but also the political parties.  This is more starkly illustrated in the ranks of the Labour Party which, learning nothing from the disastrous lies of the Blairite era, is torn between pro- and anti-bombing factions. The start of the war faction of the Labour Party, led by Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, has been helpfully assisted by the right wing media dead set on undermining the new Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

This section of the Labour parliamentary party, tied to Blairite vision of imperial wars, has cast its lot with the government. Some observers have pointed out that this faction is out to spite the new Labour leader, as it has not accommodated the reality of a left wing Labour leader elected by a vast majority of the party membership.

Sensing the expected opposition from the Blairite faction, Jeremy Corbyn took the decisive action of writing directly to the party members to make their views known to their MPs.

In a round of interviews since then, Jeremy Corbyn has made it clear that the party’s MPs need to listen to the voice of the membership before they decide on such a monumental decision. More than 75 per cent of the party members expressed opposition to the bombing. Taking advantage of the media-fuelled divisions with the Labour Party, Prime Minister David Cameron rushed the vote and won it with the support of some of the right wing members of the Labour Party despite putting forward a flawed case for bombing Syria.

A number of conservative members of the parliament, with David Davis being the most prominent, voted against the motion. The Scottish National Party also voted against the government motion.

David Cameron’s reasoning for going to war is pretty thin and has been roundly criticised by political analysts and large sections of the opposition. Like the infamous claim of Iraqi missiles being 45 minutes away from London to drum up support for Iraq vote in 2003, David Cameron has conjured up the mythical 70,000 strong ground troops ready to advance on the gains made by British bombardment.

Jeremy Corbyn, a fierce critic of the war on Iraq, has pointed out serious flaws in the arguments of Cameron. He has argued that there is no coherent post-bombing plan and that there exists no moderate force of 70,000 troops on the ground.

Not only the leaders of the opposition, but other right-leaning columnists and military experts have criticised Cameron’s line of reasoning. Robert Frisk, the veteran Middle East correspondent, has suggested that Cameron would be lucky to find 70 moderates on the ground.

Despite Cameron’s weak reasoning and flawed perspective, Britain is being led into yet another war on emotions and jingoism. There is a strong possibility now that the ruling Conservative Party will win the vote with the support of the right wing, Blairite faction of the party. Yet this may prove the beginning of another ill thought-out foreign adventure whose future trajectory is uncertain.

It seems nothing has been learnt from the lessons of misadventures in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. Given the complicated internal dynamic of Syrian politics, with major groups pulling in different directions and supported by an array of regional powers with different agendas, Britain once again has consciously walked into the quagmire of Syria from which it will find itself difficult to extricate. More unexpectedly, the parliamentary vote on Syria has exposed the bubbling ideological divisions in the party, which will have a far-reaching effect on the radical direction of the party inaugurated by Jeremy Corbyn.