Syria will be a defining issue of the next US presidenc

The US has remained largely on the sidelines but the Syrian crisis will affect all corners of the Middle East and beyond

Martin ChulovThe Guardian, Sunday 21 October 2012

"Syria, more than anywhere else, is sorely testing Barack Obama's hands-off policy in the Middle East. So grave is the crisis in the Levant that it will go close to defining the success of the US president's second term – or Mitt Romney's first.

If Obama was to be judged now on how he has dealt with the ever-worsening Syrian civil war, history would likely be harsh. The US has remained largely on the sidelines of the most violent episode of the Arab spring, shaping its response through the regional policy it laid down before the first stirrings of uprising in Tunisia.....

Obama spent much of his first term recalibrating what he deemed to be his national security interests. Filtered through the realpolitik of getting re-elected, Syria has remained in the too-hard tray with neither him or his inner court conceding that what is happening as the country crumbles directly affects the US.

That position cannot last. Syria is perilously close to the abyss and its likely descent further will affect all corners of the region and far beyond. From the inauguration on, Syria will be central to the stage, along with its key backer, Iran. What to do about it will prove a defining chapter for US interests."