Apologies to the fiercely Marx-minded readers of The Spectator Australia, but: a spectre is haunting the West, the spectre of interventionism.

One may recall Irving Kristol’s famous remark that neoconservatives were “liberals who’d been mugged by reality”. Over the past thirteen years, neoconservatives have themselves, in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, been mugged by reality.

Historical analogy doesn’t only apply to failed interventions: after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the West left the country to its own devices. What we saw was the festering of al Qaeda, with a transnational operational capacity and infrastructure; the end point of such a situation became clear on a certain September morning, over a decade ago.

So then, should the West assist in destroying the Islamic State? The answer is unequivocally “yes”.

Sins of the Father notwithstanding. Iraq in 2014 is not the Iraq of 2003, nor is the proposed mission the same. The argument that Saddam had kept Iraq stable – albeit while carrying out the mass slaughter of Kurds and Shi’ite Marsh Arabs – doesn’t hold to the present situation regarding the Islamic State (IS), who currently occupy territory – the size of the United Kingdom – and resources hitherto unseen in organisations of its kind; the most competent terrorist organisation in the world.

Those who argue that “we” created IS, that formerly ragtag metamorphosis of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), or that the mistake of the 2003 intervention means that we simply cannot do anything to combat this threat are, I fear, treading on the sort of moral precipice whereon Noam Chomsky made a lucrative career.

At the very least, advocates of “watching from the sidelines” should acknowledge that doing nothing is, in and of itself, a form and mode of action. Allowing the Islamic State to entrench themselves and metastasize across the Middle East would be both a political and strategic disaster for the West, for our allies, and – always lost in realpolitik analysis – the people of the region. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, (as they called themselves then) were responsible for 43 per cent of attacks in the region during 2013.

Resorting to “don’t stir the pot” rhetoric makes the presumption that stirring it would prove more costly than ignoring it. As Max Boot noted in Commentary, “The longer we wait to deal with ISIS, the more formidable it will get and the harder to dismantle”.

Even those who agree that the Islamic State must be defeated are conflicted on exactly how such a battle would take place. Should it simply be left to Iran, their proxy militia of Hezbollah, and the regime they prop up in Damascus? Not exactly; after all, Iran has its own rather sinister ambitions that have become all the more apparent in the geopolitical wrangle they find themselves in with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.

The problem with debate on these matters is that “intervention” conjures up the sort of disastrous nation-building that impeded the West in destroying our enemies in years past. A new report by RAND, regarding the amalgam of new Salafi-jihadist groups to gain prominence in recent years advocates an adaptive counterterrorism strategy for the United States. Such engagement utilises the use of special operations, intelligence, diplomacy, and the precision-targeting of groups and “their financial, logistical, and political support networks”, in addition to “training, advising, assisting local governments” against such organisations.

The sort of limited action we’ve seen so far against IS are unlikely to contain them, let alone begin to roll them back from the vast advances they’ve made recently. There is room for the West to substantially boost their presence in Iraq beyond the simple notion of “battalions on the ground”. In the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Byman notes the path ahead: political reform in Baghdad, a limited use of U.S. military force, and building local Iraqi resilience. Such force could entail a sustained bombing campaign against IS, an organisation with no airforce or navy, and special operations to kill their leadership, and capture mid-ranking commanders.

When discussing political reform, one must recognise the dire state of Iraqi politics, even after the Tehran lackey, Nouri al-Maliki, has stepped down in favour of Haider al-Abdadi. The two leaders, despite their differences, share the same Shi’ite powerbase that has so enflamed sectarianism in Iraq. Shi’ite leaders must make painful concessions to accommodate Iraqi Sunnis, persecuted and disenfranchised in Maliki’s dark sectarian era. This is a problem for Iraqis to solve themselves. The West have dabbled enough in neoconservative social-engineering, we can provide only assistance and advice, both of which will only have currency if the West show that they are willing to assist Iraq in defeating the Islamic State.

Let us not forget that AQI were roundly trounced by the West and Iraqis during the 2007-8 “surge”. What was initially a tactical victory failed to develop into a strategic one for Iraq. As the Henry Jackson Society’s Robin Simcox said in Foreign Affairs, “in the absence of sustained attention and military force, terrorist networks tend to regenerate.”

The role that Australia can play in this – pace our superb and world-respected special forces – is, I fear, almost entirely symbolic. People have come to recognise that the only dog with any teeth in these fights is the United States.

However, as we all know, the West has become fatigued; war-weary. Whether it was Julia Gillard heralding the end of the “9/11 decade”, Kevin Rudd declaring the “mission over” in Iraq in 2008, or President Obama’s clear, if premature, assertion that “a decade of war is ending”, most people recognise that the international desire to intervene in Mesopotamia and the Levant is non-existent. An unprecedented number of the American people, too, think that the United States should “mind its own business internationally”.

Some may rejoice over the vacuum left by the recent absence of American power over the past few years. We’ll see how long their joy lasts.

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