AKIPRESS.COM - Prime Minister David Cameron urged the British Parliament on Friday to approve plans to join the American-led air campaign in Iraq against the Islamic State militant group, saying there was no “walk-on-by” alternative to intervention.

“This is not a threat on the far side of the world,” he told lawmakers, reports NYTimes. 

“Left unchecked, we will face a terrorist caliphate on the shores of the Mediterranean, bordering a NATO member, with a declared and proven determination to attack our country and our people,” he said. “This is not the stuff of fantasy — it is happening in front of us and we need to face up to it.”

Wary of a new rebuttal from Parliament and keen to avert opposition from the Labour Party, Mr. Cameron said that Britain would not join the United States in attacking targets in Syria and would not commit ground forces to fight the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL.

“There is no more serious an issue,” he said, “than asking our armed forces to put themselves in harm’s way to protect our country.”

The proposed British deployment is limited in scope, lagging that of France, which is already bombing targets in Iraq, and of the United States, which has embarked on far more muscular strikes with five Arab allies, in Syria as well as Iraq.

As he outlined his case for intervention, Mr. Cameron faced persistent and tough questioning from lawmakers about the campaign’s objectives, the risk of mission creep and the readiness of Iraqi forces to take advantage of airstrikes.

“We would want to see a stable Iraq and — over time — a stable Syria, too, ISIL degraded and then destroyed as a serious terrorist organization,” Mr. Cameron told Parliament. “But let me be frank: We should not expect this to happen quickly, the hallmarks of this campaign will be patience and persistence not shock and awe,” he added.