London (CNN) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to expand the military campaign against ISIS terrorists into Syria, and to boost American backing for rebels fighting Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, represents a grave escalation that risks dragging the U.S. and its allies into an open-ended regional war. 

In his televized speech to the nation on Wednesday evening, Obama argued his proposed strategy of extended air strikes and use of local ground forces (but not American combat troops) against the extremists also known as ISIL and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria was fundamentally different from past White House policies that led the U.S. to fight two Middle East ground wars in as many decades. 

But Obama, as he has shown repeatedly since 2008, is a reluctant warrior with no particular expertise in armed conflict. No doubt John F. Kennedy felt that he, too, understood the risks when he started sending American advisors to Saigon in the early 1960s. Like JFK, he may be starting a fight he cannot finish, which will run on and on for untold years. 

Obama, who came to office wearing the mantle of a man of peace and agent of change, has ultimately proved little different in this respect from predecessors such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. His tone on television was nationalistic and bombastic. American primacy, he said, was "the one constant in an uncertain world." He continued: "Our endless blessings bestow an enduring burden. But as Americans, we welcome our responsibility to lead." 
What does the author thing Obama as shown repeatedly since 2008?
 is a reluctant warrior