The speech made by Barack Obama on Wednesday evening was one he hoped he would never have to make. Until now he had clung to the idea that his legacy in foreign affairs was simple: he had withdrawn troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and killed Osama bin Laden, thus disposing of George W Bush's unfinished business.
Since the death of bin Laden, Mr Obama has gone out of his way to avoid actions that would cloud this simple narrative. He has largely stood aside while the Syrian civil war raged. He dismissed the rampaging jihadists of ISIL as a “JV team”, a reference to junior varsity teams that perform below the standard of the major players. He had seemed happy for Iraq, with its dysfunctional government threatening the integrity of the state, to disappear off the US media radar so he could focus on domestic affairs.
But on Wednesday night Mr Obama found himself declaring the Iraq war, part three. Almost 25 years after the first US-led war against Iraq and the sanctions and occupation that followed, Washington has admitted that the Iraqi state is in no fit state to run its own affairs.
Mr Obama has promised a "comprehensive and sustained counter terrorism strategy" to "degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL". For the first time, this will involve air strikes against ISIL on Syrian territory. This inevitably will require a serious engagement in the Syrian war: weakening ISIL will give a boost to the flagging forces of the Syrian president, Bashar Al Assad, so the US will have to compensate by strengthening the moderate forces, which Mr Obama has previously been loath to help. His view has been that "moderates" do not win battles. If given weapons, they may take them and join the ranks of the more ruthless Islamist factions, or just sell them for cash.
Political leaders should not be criticised for changing their stance when events on the ground change. That is the nature of political life. But cynics will see Mr Obama, in professorial mode, as having assessed all the options and taken a wide range of advice and then, putting on his political hat, made his decision on the basis of opinion polls. Since the beheading of two American journalists by ISIL, the polls have shown that the American people have lost their reluctance for foreign engagement, which Mr Obama had understood and followed, and are now thirsting for action.
If it has any chance of success, this will be a long-term project, requiring a broad coalition including key Arab states. Thus Mr Obama will not be leaving office with the Bush legacy wrestled to the ground, as he had hoped, but very much alive and kicking.
Mr Obama has always insisted that the world needs American leadership, but this has been more a philosophical position than a programme for muscular intervention. Addressing graduating cadets at the West Point military academy in May, Mr Obama set the bar very high for military action abroad. Air strikes would be launched only “when we face a continuing, imminent threat, and only where there is near certainty of no civilian casualties. Our actions should meet a simple test – we must not create more enemies than we take off the battlefield”.
The first condition is not met. For all its barbarism, ISIL does not at the moment present any realistic threat to the American homeland, as is recognised by US intelligence. And if you want certainty about not causing civilian casualties and not creating enemies on the battlefield, don’t go to war.
The doveish impression made by the West Point speech built on Mr Obama’s obvious relief at not having to make good on his promise to attack the Syrian regime for its use of chemical weapons a year ago. US military experts contend that all this encouraged ISIL to believe that America had left the scene.
Having led from behind, Mr Obama is now promising to lead from the front, though at the head of a foreign coalition, not a Bush-style grand expeditionary force. As Ryan Crocker, former US ambassador in Iraq and Afghanistan, has said: “You don’t end a war by walking off the battlefield and leaving it to your enemies.”
The bigger question is how the new Obama strategy can be made to work. He cited the experience of Yemen and Somalia, where a largely secret campaign of US drone strikes has been picking off militants. Neither country can be counted a success. The president wisely neglected to mention Pakistan, the main focus of his drone strikes, where a decade of US counter-terrorism has made the country almost ungovernable.
An even bigger question mark hangs over the ability of the new Iraqi prime minister Haider Al Abadi to create a government of all Iraqis, and not a machine to cement the hegemony of the majority Shiites over the previously dominant Sunnis. While his government – mainly old faces and ominously formed without filling the key roles of defence and interior ministers – has been praised by Washington as a new start, sectarianism is still powering ahead. While the US-equipped Iraqi army is in ruins, the fight back against ISIL is spearheaded by Shiite-sectarian militias, aided by Kurdish troops, with Iranian advisers in the background.
A broad-based Iraqi government has to be the start of Mr Obama’s challenge to ISIL. Without this it is hard to see how Arab states will feel comfortable putting their full weight behind the president’s proposed anti-ISIL coalition.
In Iraq the goal is clear, if not easily attainable. The same cannot be said for Syria, where Mr Obama has given himself the right to launch air strikes on ISIL’s headquarters and supply routes. President Assad will be disappointed that his invitation to Washington to fight side by side against the Islamists has been turned down. Beyond that, the addition of US air power to an already many-sided conflict with multiple foreign powers involved will have consequences that are impossible to predict.
Alan Philps is a commentator on global affairs
On Twitter: @aphilps
