Daily Mail – 1 October 2015

... Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Britain was still trying to confirm what the Russians had done following their announcement of the airstrikes. But he reiterated Britain's belief that President Assad has no future as the Syrian leader – and that the Russians could face legal consequences for their 'open and ostentatious' support of him.

David Cameron said that if Russia was 'acting in defence of Assad the dictator' then 'obviously that is a retrograde step'. However, ... Tory MP Julian Lewis, chair of the Defence Select Committee, said that the Russians appeared to know exactly what they were doing and the West had a

'wholly unrealistic expectation of the conflict'.

He said:

'We are still wedded to this fixation that the dictator Assad must be removed and until the Government abandons this idea, they are going to find themselves caught between two fires.

'Whatever we think of their misconduct elsewhere in the world, the Russians have clearly made up their mind which side of the civil war they intend to support and the British remain stuck in a trap of our own making and we have to choose between the lesser of two evils.

'I believe that Daesh is the greater of two evils but this is not something which the government is prepared to face up to.'

Britain currently has no warplanes conducting air strikes over Syria as the Government is waiting to seek parliamentary approval. There are ten unmanned drones flying in the region however which have been used to take out two British jihadists fighting in Syria ...