Boris Johnson has called for the West to cut a deal with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin – despite describing the latter as a “ruthless and manipulative tyrant” – in order to destroy Isis.
The Tory MP and mayor of London – a leading contender to replace David Cameron as Prime Minister when he stands down before the next election – argued that the priority was to drive the “evil death cult” from the territory it controls in Syria and Iraq.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson said: “Innocent lives are being lost now: tens of thousands of people butchered just because they are women, or disabled, or gay, or because they belong to the wrong strand of Islam.
“I don’t want to have them on my conscience, and I don’t want these sickos from Daesh/Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) to continue to exult in their so-called caliphate, and to be allowed indefinitely to promote their terrorist campaigns.”
To do defeat Isis, it would be necessary to work with Mr Assad, despite claims he has killed up to a million of his own people, and with Mr Putin, he wrote.
He appeared to cast doubt on Mr Cameron’s claims that there were 70,000 moderate rebels ready to act as ground troops against Isis.
“We need someone to provide the boots on the ground; and given that we are not going to be providing British ground forces – and the French and the Americans are just as reluctant – we cannot afford to be picky about our allies,” Mr Johnson said.
“We have the estimated 70,000 of the Free Syrian Army (and many other groups and grouplets); but those numbers may be exaggerated, and they may include some jihadists who are not ideologically very different from al-Qaeda.