I've got one more point to add.
(Why couldn't you just put all your comments in the one response?)
Yeah I know, sorry.

Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State when this war began.
Remember what she said about Ghaddifi?
"We came, We saw, He died" [Cackles uncontrollably]

Saudi Arabia was one of the largest donors to the Clinton Foundation, (as was Julia Gillard).
Do you think this war has been handled any differently than her botched, corrupt and fraudulent election campaign together with the complicity of the corporate media?

And that's not even going into the fact that General Wesley Clark after 9/11 laid out the plans to take out 7 countries in 5 years, including Syria and Iran.

I'll go back to my original comment - It all smells like BS to me.

Any analysis of Australia's re-engagement in the M-E that doesn't mention the Yazidi is, to my mind, utterly suspect.

Remember that we only started shooting again in response to the attempted genocide of the Yazidi people and that the only way to ensure that they and similar groups are safe, or safer, is to destroy ISIL.

Sure, doing so is messy and innocents suffer. But not doing so is also messy and innocents will also suffer. "War is always a matter of doing evil in the hope that good may come of it." (Liddell Hart).

Destroying ISIL means saving Assad. So be it. One enemy at a time. People fetishising of the legalities of this or that action, ought to spend a little more time over the legalities of selling 10 yr olds on the slave market.

Wouldn't you think that in all this mess, there would be a good way for a smart lawyer to make a few quid? If they can only find the right angle, of course there is, & it will probably be taxpayer funded.