Syria: Heads the Bad Guys Win; Tails America Loses

30 months and 100,000 deaths into the civil war, there are no good choices for the US regarding Syria. Instead of supporting the original, pro-American, moderate opposition in the beginning, the United States stayed on the sidelines while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted 'Bashar al-Assad is a reformer.' This from the woman President Obama called, "... one of the finest secretary of states we've had."[sic] (I guess proper English wasn't stressed at Punahou, Occidental College, Columbia University or Harvard Law School!) But I digress. While the Obama Administration hung on to the notion that Assad was a reformer, Assad went about destroying the moderate opposition which was soon replaced by a collection of radical, al Qaeda affiliated, extremists. To make matters worse, President Obama, in order to appear tough during his re-election campaign, painted the US into a corner with his "red line" regarding the use of chemical weapons. Now we are faced with having to choose between the brutal dictator, Assad, and the America-hating Islamists but choose we must. Further complicating our decision is the fact that it isn't completely clear exactly who used the gas against the mostly civilian victims. Most likely it was Assad but there is also the possibility that it was the extremists. Assad clearly had the greater capability to use chemical weapons but he also had the least to gain. He is winning his fight against the opposition without using chemical weapons and using them would only draw the ire of America. On the other hand, the rebels are far less capable of deploying chemical weapons but the Islamists have demonstrated a willingness to kill civilians if it leads to their ultimate goals. If Assad gets the blame and the US attacks his military capability, it just might turn the tide of the war in favor of the extremists. All this has the makings of a "good Democrat" war - one in which the US has very little national interest, has little to gain, has little support from our allies and is opposed by the United Nations. Unlike the case for war against Iraq (ADMITTEDLY IT PROVED TO BE A BAD DECISION) which had the support of a coalition of over 40 countries, 17 UN resolutions condemning Saddam Hussein and his regime, the support of the UN, authorization from the Congress to use force, and the belief by nearly every world intelligence service that Iraq possessed WMDs, the case for attacking Syria is far weaker. While not insignificant, Assad allegedly killed about 1500 people with chemical weapons as opposed to the thousands of Iranian soldiers during the Iran-Iraq War and thousands of his own citizens during the Kurdish uprisings known to have been killed by Saddam using chemical weapons. Further, unlike the build-up to the Iraq War, Obama has managed to assemble a coalition of only 5 countries - France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar. These are good allies but certainly not without their own motivation which is probably vastly different from ours. As a result of his failed effort to gain wide international support, the US was embarrassed when British Prime Minister, David Cameron, was denied authority to use force against Syria by the British House of Commons after pledging to help. Humiliation loves company! Lastly, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned that any military strikes against Syria would be illegal unless in self-defense under the UN charter or if approved by the UN Security Council. Since Syria is unlikely to attack the US directly and Security Council members, Russia and China, are opposed to any military action against Syria, these criteria will not likely be met. Congress may ultimately approve the president's use of force but only because the country has been put into a position where unless we act, its credibility will be damaged by yet another inept Obama Administration foreign policy blunder. So this is where things currently stand: Heads the Bad Guys Win; Tails America Loses!