Grozny rules in Aleppo

JUST when it seems that the war in Syria cannot get any worse, it does. On September 19th Syrian and Russian planes struck a convoy about to deliver aid to besieged parts of Aleppo. The attack wrecked the ceasefire brokered by America and Russia, and was followed by the worst bombardment that the ancient city has yet seen. Reports speak of bunker-buster, incendiary and white phosphorus bombs raining down.Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, is destroying his country to cling to power. And Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is exporting the scorched-earth methods that he once used to terrify the Chechen capital, Grozny, into submission. Such savagery will not halt jihadism, but stoke it. And American inaction makes it all worse. The agony of Syria is the biggest moral stain on Barack Obama’s presidency. And the chaos rippling from Syria—where many now turn to al-Qaeda, not the West, for salvation—is his greatest geopolitical failure.