President Obama is absolutely right. Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime has crossed a red line by the use of chemical weapons on over 1,000 of their own citizens. This flaunting of what has been an accepted norm in warfare since the end of World War I is totally unacceptable. It's not about deposing Assad at this point. It's about punishing someone for using these weapons and letting them know that the consequences would prove devastating. Teaching a tyrant this lesson is worth the effort, except for one thing. Nobody's on board... not the American public, not the British Parliament, not the UN Security Council. Russia and China are up to their necks in financial interests in Assad's Syria. Sunni-dominated Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would like nothing more than hitting Assad hard, but they refuse to join the US out in the open. Iran, Iraq and their Hezbollah puppets out of Lebanon have helped shore up the Assad regime. Many refuse to believe the evidence because they don't want to believe the United States. Secretary of State Kerry has made a compelling case for a military strike, but what is the point of teaching a bad guy a lesson if most of the world refuses to listen? The world gives a pass on chemical weapons at its own peril. I'm afraid all the Obama administration can really do is provide a bully pulpit to the world about the folly of looking the other way. Our own moral imperative has diminished as we failed to punish Saddam Hussein for gassing Iranians and Kurds, hurriedly went into and out of Somalia, ignored the Rwanda disaster and failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Sadly, it's going to take a more spectacular chemical attack to get the world to get past the politics. President Obama has become a voice in the wilderness. It's sad.
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