Jim, if we had intervened earlier, there is no doubt that Syria would now be under the full control of ISIS.
We could only have provided air support to the terrorists, Assad's army would have been blown to pieces and who was going to volunteer to go in on the ground and oppose the Islamist psychopaths?

Not Obama after the US experience in Iraq, certainly not the UK, the population were deeply opposed to any further foreign intervention.

The removal of Assad and his army would have been an absolute gift to the Islamic State.

Everybody knows this truth but words come easy.