Syrian Kurdish fighters, supported by the US air force, will soon end the caliphate that, at its height only a few years ago, controlled a third of Syria and Iraq. Isis is about to lose Baghouz, its last enclave in the Euphrates valley, on Syria’s border with Iraq. The jihadist group’s survivors have melted away into the empty wastes, reverting to terror and suicide attacks, while some of their foreign fighters may bring the war back home.
The priority for the world’s security services will be to avert a new rash of terror attacks of the type that have scarred Paris and Nice, Brussels and Berlin, London and Manchester, Istanbul and Ankara.
But now that the territorial caliphate that menaced the region is at an end, there is urgent need for reflection on how to change the western foreign policy that has reliably engendered jihadism. It is only a matter of time before a more virulent strain emerges if the west keeps blundering about in the Middle East.