I just listened to Secretary of State John Kerry's speech about Syria and the use there of WMD, in this case poison gas. I thought he did a good job, he made the case as well as Colin Powell made the case to the U.N. for the Iraq invasion.
A majority of Americans are opposed to U.S. involvement in Syria. Who is in favor? Our President, naturally. Why? Because he said he'd get involved if WMD were used, and it appears they have been.
Once again Uncle Sam will put on his uniform and go to war, to some degree putting people and treasure at risk. And the polling is very clear, Americans don't want it done.
It is unlikely that we will end up with anyone on either side appreciating what we do. The aided side, the Sunni rebels, will view what we do as too little, done too late. The other (Shia) side will hate us even more, if that is possible.
I heard someone on a TV panel say a clever thing. "Instead of the usual enemy of my enemy is my friend; in Syria the enemy of my enemy is also my enemy." Another pundit described Syria as being like the World War II battle of Stalingrad, where you'd like both the Nazis and the Communists to lose.
The only way to make intervention work for us is if we can modulate our help to keep the two sides roughly equal in strength so they keep fighting, keep killing each other. It is hard to feel good about ourselves acting out that strategy.
