War on terror

Why the U.S. Hopes ISIS Didn’t Destroy the Russian Airliner

The prospect that ISIS planted a bomb that blew a Russian airliner out of the sky last weekend raises the stakes for President Obama and the rest of the civilized world. While the evidence of the Islamic State’s culpability remains sketchy, confirmation would elevate the conflict to an entirely new level—a level neither Washington nor Moscow wants. Fingers are crossed in both capitals that some mechanical reason for the disaster will be found, and found soon.

But if the ongoing investigations, which killed all 224 aboard when the Airbus A321 crashed into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula Saturday, increasing point to a bomb, the world’s war against ISIS will have to shift gears. It will go from being a distant religious conflict pursued by zealots to a major challenge to the international order that can no longer be handled with airpower—U.S., Russian or anyone else’s—alone.