Can David Cameron resist the siren call of military intervention in Mali?

The parallels are disturbing: a wild, ill-governed, majority Muslim country torn by ethnic conflicts, lumbered with all the ills that departing colonial powers can provide; Islamist militants occupying the space vacated by the failing state and tyrannising the local population. The former colonial power leaps into the breach and scatters the militants with almost no casualties. But years later, after the expenditure of billions of pounds, thousands of Western troops are dead, the militants are stronger than ever, and the only available solution is a scuttle. The Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, went to great lengths in Parliament to deny the parallels between Afghanistan and Mali. For a...