While it might suit us to imagine this fight in binary terms, a struggle of good versus evil, there is an important point that must not be ignored. This war is pulling together an uncomfortable conglomeration of natural allies and natural enemies on one side and pitting them against an equally messy conglomeration of allies on the other. Within this international coalition there is not even a clear set of values underpinning the agenda and perhaps, more worryingly, there is no clear objective.

Some members of this coalition will be satisfied with diminishing the operational capabilities of Isis. Others will want to see Isis destroyed completely, whatever that means. No convincing argument has yet been made about how bombing specific targets in northern Iraq and Syria will help to destroy an ideology which has spread, cancer-like, radicalising limited but troubling numbers of disaffected young Muslim men and women around the world, including in western Sydney.

Complicating this scenario even further will be the outlying objectives of some members of the international coalition. The Sunni governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE have long wanted to see off the Alawite dominated regime of Bashar al-Assad, with its allegiances to Shia Iran and Shia Hezbollah, in Lebanon. Speaking on Sunday, Syria’s deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad put it mildly when he described that approach as “a very dangerous game”

As this drags on, there’s every chance the line will become blurred between radical Sunni Muslim targets and other targets in Iraq and Syria. If, for example Sunni tribes in the north-west of Iraq are not brought back into the fold by a more inclusive national government in Baghdad, how then does the coalition distinguish between them and the radicals? The risk is that what we, in Australia, might see as a clear battle-line between Isis and the rest of the civilized world will be understood in a vastly more nuanced fashion in the Middle East. In truth, this war has a multitude of battle-lines and whilst Australia might be clear about where it stands, it will not always be immediately clear where our partners stand.

The Australian government may have deemed that there is simply no other choice than to commit to this. And they would not be alone in concluding that. But if we are going into battle, we should firstly know if this is in fact “a war”, which side we are on and what precisely it is that we are fighting for.