“Instituting a no-fly-zone over Syria may very well lead to world war.”
That’s what I was thinking...
If we attack Assad, the Russian will go apes***...
We also need to attack any Iranian presence in Iraq.
Why should we care about what the Russians or Chinese think anyway? We need to take a hardline against them to stop them now or they are going to be trouble. And we need to keep Iran from creating a landbridge to Israel. The only way we do this is to keep Iran out of Iraq and Syria.
The Russians would NOT sit back if we attack Assad. At the minimum, they would deploy a whole LOT of S-300 & Bastion air defense, most likely manned by Russian troops.
Or they could go further, and deploy fighters to attack any incoming threats to Assad. Another option is missile strikes against air bases in the region, or using Sunburn missiles (the ones that go about Mach 3 and can evade Phalanx) to strike carriers.
Or they could start with option I, get enraged at Russians being killed, and then sink a carrier to retaliate.