Recent history leaves voters fearful of an IS attack but reluctant to send troops to fight the terrorists

MANY of us believe an Islamic State sttack on Australian soil is just a matter of time. So why don’t we want to send our troops to blast them into history?

ANALYSIS

With so many Australians expecting an Islamic State attack on our soil, it is significant there isn’t a majority demand to deploy our troops to Syrian soil.

The horrors in Paris just over a week ago remain front of mind for many voters.

But still we flinch at sending our soldiers into a dangerous and chaotic battleground where friends and foes sometimes merge.

A quarter of Australian voters believe a terrorist attack by the fundamentalist group is inevitable here, and 52 per cent regard one as very likely or likely, according to today’s Newspoll in The Australian.

However, while 42 per cent agree combat ground troops should be sent to Syria and Iraq to clean out the IS butchers, the option is opposed by 45 per cent of voters.

It is a statistically small but telling resistance to piling into other people’s wars, even when our self-defence is an issue.

This national security debate will be a test of whether Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull can manage his own government, or be swamped by his right-wing colleagues.

Voters will give him a pass or fail, and at the moment they continue to absorb the issue.

It could be that voters still remember what happened after we sent troops in to smash terrorists elsewhere.

It was Afghanistan and our military was there from 2001 to 2014 with the loss of 41 soldiers and 256 wounded and little success, despite the extraordinary effort from our troops.

It could be that nobody has been able to argue a strong enough case for a military commitment in Iraq (again) and Syria.

The strategy after the 2003 Coalition of the Willing invasion of Iraq was not a success and that failure could be adding to the caution.

No one of authority has proposed a unilateral mission, with Australia going it alone. But there is a keenness to encourage the US, Russia, France and Britain into a battle plan for ground troops.

This falls short of explaining what would happen after a major military operation, and few would want Australian troops spending another 13 years fighting and dying in a far off country.

The debate isn’t over, and a shrill “boots on the ground” chorus is just warming up.

Many of these choristers were and remain Tony Abbott loyalists, and after losing the battle for the prime ministership, they are determined not to lose the Syria strategy debate to Mr Turnbull, who in some minority circles is being depicted as a wimp, if not an appeasing coward.

His broad response to IS so far is to attempt a ceasefire in Syria so regional forces can concentrate on killing extremists and not each other, and to follow US leadership on the question.

“It is important in these situations we remain very calm and that we work in concert with our partners in this theatre,” Treasurer Scott Morrison said today.

“And that we don’t have some hot-headed response to these issues but that we remain very measured and calibrated with our partners.”

Just four months ago Mr Turnbull had two ambitions within government. He achieved one when he became Prime Minister and knocked off the second today by sitting down with Cabinet’s national security committee.

It is a seat he has wanted for some time, but probably never thought he would take in current circumstances of global security urgency.

It is a critical test of his leadership, both within his party and of the nation.

Originally published as Recent history leaves voters fearful of an IS attack but reluctant to send troops to fight the terrorists