HOW many more failed states in western Asia and north Africa is Hilary Benn prepared to see before he reconsiders supporting yet another bombing campaign?

The shadow foreign secretary has clearly placed himself in the “we have to be seen to do something in Syria” camp — even if something is worse than nothing.

Benn suggests that British military action in Sierra Leone and Kosovo was successful without UN approval, but the two scenarios have little in common.

The Nato-led dismemberment of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has enabled the European Union to gradually absorb its constituent republics, having imposed the EU agenda of privatisation, welfare “reforms” and high unemployment.

If Benn thinks ongoing ethnic enmity and mass poverty equate to success, what would failure look like?

In contrast to the unjustifiable deployment of Nato warplanes against Serbia to assist secessionists, Sierra Leone’s elected government was overthrown by armed rebels.

British troops entered the country with the authorisation of its internationally recognised government.

That situation is analogous to Syria today, where Russia was invited to offer air support to the legitimate government’s armed forces battling against Islamic State (Isis) and an array of terrorist groups backed by regional powers.

Benn claims that British aircraft sent to Syria would bomb Isis targets, but any such deployment would happen without consulting the legitimate authority in Damascus.

It would simply mirror the largely ineffective “anti-Isis” raids carried out by US and French air forces.

Aerial power cannot of itself change a military situation. It has to work in tandem with effective ground forces.

That is self-evident from the coordinated campaigns by Russian planes in alliance with the Syrian army and indeed by US air support given to Kurdish forces.

Isis has built a military reputation on the basis of several easy battleground victories, not least through the melting away of the Iraqi army at the first whiff of conflict.

It attracts volunteers and finance from dozens of countries and benefits from Turkish government collusion in allowing Isis to sell looted oil and set up R&R facilities on its territory.

The jihadi death cult has, however, been defeated when confronted by military opponents who understand why Isis must be destroyed and who have the firepower to achieve this.

This week’s lifting of the two-year Isis siege on the Kweiras air base in Aleppo by Syrian government forces followed other recent advances by the army.

The Syrian army, like the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi’ite militias are among those who have given good account of themselves in confrontations with Isis.

Yet the Labour foreign affairs supremo ignores the crying need to back those resisting Isis on the ground in favour of ineffective armed propaganda in the form of sporadic bombing raids to provide computer-enhanced war-porn pictures for the TV evening news.

Benn’s penchant for tail-ending Washington and Paris shares their colonialist mindset that imperialist powers have the right to decide which state leaders should be backed and which must be sacked.

He may gain plaudits from B52 liberals who insist that Nato should impose “safe havens” on Syria, effectively occupying the country and undermining the government, but such a stance would escalate the conflict still further.

Labour, under Ed Miliband’s leadership, took a stand against bombing Syria, but Tory warmongers are intent on winkling out a sufficient number of muscular neoliberals to rat on this principled position.

Benn’s speech in Coventry, which aligns him with this tendency, must be condemned.

Defeat of Isis and involvement of all Syrian democratic forces in working out a reconstruction of their country are inextricably linked.

Assisting those twin developments ought to be Labour’s priority not engaging in yet another illegal and disastrous overseas military adventure.