By taking the fight to Islamic State (Isis) militants in Syria, Barack Obama has opened up a broad new Middle East battlefront – and started something that, by his own admission, he cannot finish. The US president warned this month that his vow to “degrade and destroy” Isis would take years to achieve. Obama’s successor in the White House is now likely to inherit, as did Obama in 2009, an ongoing, costly and intractable Middle East conflict.
The intervention is significant in other respects. Obama has stepped into the middle of Syria’s civil war after three years of resolutely striving to keep out. The possible consequences of this volte-face are unfathomable. The scale of Tuesday’s attack, involving fighter bombers, drones and sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles, was a big escalation compared with the more limited strikes on Isis in Iraq since August. Obama’s action was triggered by fears of an imminent massacre of Syrian Kurds, who fled in large numbers across the Turkish border last weekend in the face of Isis attacks.