The West, led by the USA, is surely right to provide aid and protection for the hundreds of thousands fleeing from Islamic extremists in the newly established Caliphate (Islamic State)in northern Iraq and Syria.

The extremists have made clear their desire to cleanse the world of all who fail to follow Islam and for them the slaughter of innocents is merely part of their Jihad, their holy war against non-believers. Over the last few months Christians and other minorities in northern Iraq have been given an ultimatum, convert to Islam or die and thousands have indeed been put to death for failing to convert. Such genocide is nothing new and it was only a hundred years ago that the Turks began the extermination of over 1.5 million Armenian Christians in what is still known as the Armenian massacre.

Few politicians in the West have the courage to speak out openly about the alarming spread of Islamic extremism since, of course, any criticism of a minority or foreign culture, no matter how heinous, usually leads to accusations of being racist or right wing. They should put those fears aside because the threat is real and the brutal beheading of the American journalist James Foley, evidently by one of several British Muslim extremists fighting alongside the ISIS terror group, was a stark reminder of how deep and close to home the problem is.

To take action against these fanatics is not to victimise Muslims since the majority want no more than to live in peace just like the rest of us. The fact is that many Muslims are equally concerned by the actions and policies of the extremists within their own religion but they are too frightened to do anything about it.

Islamic extremism is without doubt the single biggest threat to world peace and security and, quite frankly, anybody who doubts this is either living in denial or is away with the fairies. The threat is real and constant and we underestimate it at our peril. We must ensure that those who govern us do all that they can to protect us and that we also – preferably through the United Nations – do all we can to prevent further acts of genocide from occurring anywhere in the world.