US To Strike Syria? Another Naive Use of Force?

The word is that the United States (in conjunction with its European allies) will be launching an attack on Syria in the very near future as a response to the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons against its own people last week. 

According to some sources a senior US official said that the Assad regime's shelling of the site it it with chemical weapons the day after the WMD attack and the time that had passed since, made the investigation “too late to be credible.”

British press outlets reported that a half-hour phone call between Prime Minister David Cameron and the US president on Saturday focused on military, not diplomatic, options.

David Cameron discussed launching missile strikes against key regime targets during a 40-minute telephone call with President Barack Obama on Saturday night and also with the French President François Hollande on Sunday. While Downing Street said Western powers had not ruled out seeking UN endorsement for military action they added that they were also prepared to unilaterally. 

Hawkish members of Congress are calling for some sort of military attack on Syria.

The issue is that no one has outlined why we are attacking?  What is our mission? How do we intend to get out? In other words...just what the hell are we doing?

Are we really looking just to slap the Assad regime on the wrist? Send a few tomahawk missiles its way so we can say we did something? Is it just this president trying to display his testosterone after setting a red line and ignoring it six months ago? What will that accomplish?

As the preparations gathered pace, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, warned that the world could not stand by and allow the Assad regime to use chemical weapons against the Syrian people “with impunity”.

Britain, the US and their allies must show Mr Assad that to perpetrate such an atrocity “is to cross a line and that the world will respond when that line is crossed”, he said.

British forces now look likely to be drawn into an intervention in the Syrian crisis after months of deliberation and international disagreement over how to respond to the bloody two-year civil war.

That is what it seems like.  The US and Europe are going to attack Syria with one purpose in mind, to punish the regime.  That's it! No strategic interest other than a military version of making the Assad regime put a dunce cap on and sitting in the corner. Syria's use of chemical weapons against its own people is horrible. But we have know they were using the WMDs for six months now.  Why are we rushing to attack after last week's action?

And what about congress?  Is this president going to get us involved in another military conflict without first going to congress just as he did in Libya? Does he have an end game? Are we going to bomb Assad into submission and then turn Syria over to the Islamists the way we did in Libya and Egypt? Is that in the strategic interests of the United States?

Now is not the time for another shoot first--think later action.  How do we attack Syria without escalating the conflict region-wide? We know that this regime is really leading a proxy war for the Iranians (with the help from Russia).

As this president prepares to attack Syria without a congressional vote and against the will of the American people we should be fearful that this is simply another naive use of force. In the six months since Syria first used chemical weapons against its people...there have been plenty of questions raised and very few answers given.  We should demand that our government give us those answers before they put any more of our heroes into danger!