If you attack Iran instead of Syria, your problem becomes more manageable.
You still get into a very difficult war, but then the war pivots around Iran’s willingness to proliferate NBC weapons to countries willing to deploy them.
It’s no longer a preemptive strike. Your causus belli becomes Iran crossing the line. You treat Assad like the puppet that he is, and you move on. Syria can’t fight the rebels and us at the same time. We don’t want to pick a winner in Syria, so we just make sure neither side can win and they end up destroying each other.
You attack the Iran - Hezbollah - Muslim Bros axis, and you enlist (publically at least) Russia’s help in finally uprooting a massively destabilizing force in the Middle East.
It leaves the Russians to clean up the Syrian problem (it’s their port to defend after all, and we don’t have any national interest there beside containment).
If the Russians protest Iran, it won’t be long before evidence of widespread WMD production hits the news and they can decide whether going nuclear for Iran is worth it (it isn’t).
It also gives us a hoot-in-hell’s chance of salvaging something out of Iraq.
If Obama gets sucked into Syria, he’s as stupid as everyone says he is, only this time it will be DEMOCRATS calling him stupid.
The other one leading from the rear on this? Clinton. Hear a peep out of her lately? Press cared to get her opinion on the situation, having JUST HAD THE SECSTATE JOB RECENTLY?
Everybody acknowledges Kerry is there because he’s incompetent, which is why nobody is listening to him.
You want to head fake people into believing you are going to invade Syria, go ahead, but my target would be Iran.
Sad how we pulled out all those conveniently placed military assets along the Iran/Iraq border recently. Would have been convenient to have left them there for situations like this.
Pissing off Israel and convincing them they couldn’t trust us was also a master stroke. Now you are looking at launching airstrikes from Saudi Arabia, maybe, and not Israel, or laughably, Egypt.
Warships alone aren’t going to cut the mustard here. When the smoke clears on this, anybody that’s left is going to look at how completely and utterly unqualified Obama was to lead the most powerful country on Earth, and they’ll conclude only God could have willed it, and only God could have set up something that would seem so improbable as recently as 2006.
He’s the perfect idiot, at the perfect place, misusing the perfect tools, at the perfect time.
Thank you!
A very well reasoned well presented post!
A great opportunity to rid the mid east of future nukes from Iran, whilst Assad will have to fend for himself.
Best opportunity of forming a coalition to take out the strong-man and free the Persians of their misery!