It's pretty clear that everyone only thinks the drone program is a valid approach "over there" in the "wild east". This is particularly clear when considering British jihadis; there haven't yet been drone strikes in, say, Leeds. But we've already crossed the threshold of a British national going to Syria and then being bombed by the RAF.

Surely this cuts both ways. Terrorists over in Syria and Yemen have a very limited capability to harm us. They can be effectively banned from planes once they're identified. They have no long range missile capability. (There's a problem of shortrange missiles being fired from Pakistan into Afghanistan, though). So the whole thing resembles colonial policing: the small group of westerners trying to balance power among the local factions for their own political advantage.

(Anyone going to suggest that drones should have been used in Northern Ireland? Or that when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found he should have been taken out with an airstrike in suburban Boston? No?)