Every red-blooded Brit will be feeling the body blow of the murder of David Haines and the need for revenge, now.
The temptation to insist that Britain go back to war in the Middle East is a visceral as it is understandable. But now is not the time for sudden action.
That was more than two years ago, before so called Islamic State was much more than a small group of fanatics.
Syrian leader Bashar al Assad Back then it was as clear as day that if non-radical rebel groups in Syria were not given serious military support, probably in the form of a no-fly zone and aerial support to ground troops, then they will have been betrayed by the West.
Radical groups inevitably filled the vacuum left by what was seen as Western hypocrisy.
The West could and should have come to the aid of Syria rebels. It would have been unpopular with the electorates, it would have been messy, but it would in the long term have controlled a region that has now spun, almost, out of control.
In Paris, Francois Hollande is sponsoring an international conference on Iraq and Syria this week. Joining it will be the coalition of Arab nations who have joined some Nato allies plus Australia and others to agree to try to put an end to Islamic State.
David Haines was taken hostage in Syria before he was killed There has been a rush to condemn Mr Haines' murder. And just as big a rush to insist that there can be no foreign 'boots on the ground' - as Lord Dannatt, former head of the British army said, putting western troops especially into these arenas frequently means they become part of the problem.
But there now is also an opportunity to think the unthinkable. To try to use the evil tactics of IS against it.
Not by emulation but through revulsion.
The IS has murdered wholesale. It has forced young Syrian and Iraqis to queue to be shot, garrotted and beheaded - in their thousands. Just like Mr Haines, Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff.
David Cameron warned the UK was battling a 'poisonous ideology' There is equally considerable evidence that Bashar al Assad was complicit in the emergence of the IS.
He released hundreds of hardcore fundamentalists from his jails to try to split the rebel movement and there has been, until recently, clear evidence that IS has held back attacks against his forces in favour of driving other rebel groups out of territory they had liberated.
So the Assad regime could properly be considered part of the problem by the West and its allies across the Middle East.
As a coalition is built to deal with IS leaders, it may wish to consider that now that there is international revulsion at both the so called 'Caliphate' and for the Damascus regime, that both should bear the brunt of an international counter attack inside Syria.
Arab states, who have most to lose from Syrian instability and from the spread of the IS ideology, might like to take the lead in conducting airstrikes against both Assad and the IS - allowing local forces on the ground to move forward.
Once this was unlikely. Now it may, just, be conceivable.
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