David Cameron is facing calls from some Conservative MPs to leave open the option of British air strikes on Islamic State forces in Syria.
As MPs began heading back to Westminster for Friday's emergency Commons vote on military action against IS in Iraq, senior Tories said that it may not be sufficient to defeat the militants.
Mr Cameron has deliberately restricted Britain's involvement to Iraq in part to secure the support of Labour, which has raised concerns about extending air raids into Syria without specific authorisation of the United Nations Security Council.
The Prime Minister is desperate to avoid a repeat of 2013's Commons vote on military action when Labour combined with Tory rebels combined to inflict a damaging defeat on the Government.
Unlike Iraq, where Britain is acting at the request of the government in Baghdad, there has been no such request from the Syrian regime of President Bashar al Assad, raising questions over the legality of any military intervention.
However Conservative backbencher Bob Stewart, a member of the Commons Defence Committee and a former British commander in Bosnia, said that IS had to be defeated in its birthplace in Syria.
He warned that the government may even have to deploy British ground forces if the threat of terrorist attacks in the UK by IS was considered to be sufficiently dangerous.
"You have got to go to the eye of the octopus," he said quoting the US civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael, "and the eye of the octopus isn't necessarily in Iraq, it is in Syria".
Former defence minister Sir Gerald Howarth expressed concern that in limiting British action to Iraq, the UK was leaving the most difficult element of the operation to the United States which has already attacked IS targets in Syria.
Anti-war march
Earlier, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg insisted that there would be no British combat forces "on the ground" and that extending air strikes against IS into Syria would require a further Commons vote.
While some Conservatives were pressing for stronger action, others expressed caution.
John Baron, a leading Tory rebel in last year's Commons vote, said that ministers needed to explain their strategy more clearly, including the role of the Iraqi army and other regional forces.
"Most accept that air strikes alone will not destroy or defeat IS, as we have already seen. So what is plan B regarding regional ground forces?" he said.
"Without the Iraqi army taking and holding ground, air strikes alone could prove ineffective and, at worse, counter-productive.
"But there is no sign that the 250,000 strong, well-armed, Iraqi army has got its act together. If this remains the case, what is the exit strategy? Soldiers can only buy time. The solution has to be political."
Meanwhile, thousands are expected to take part in a protest against UK involvement on Thursday afternoon.
The march on Downing Street has been organised by the Stop The War coalition.
In a statement, the organisation said: "If this vote passes British forces will be back in action in Iraq just three years after the last troops were withdrawn from the catastrophic occupation of 2003-11. The development comes in the same week Tony Blair called for renewed bombing in the region and the possibility of boots on the ground.
"All the experience of the terrible wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya has shown that western military action only serves to kill innocents, destroy infrastructure and inflame violence.
"Isis is a reactionary force, but it is in part a product of the disastrous occupation of Iraq by Western powers. Isis is funded by some of our main allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia.
"Escalating Western military intervention will do nothing to stop them but will create more suffering and further destabilise the region."
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