The whole issue is undoubtedly politicized. The conservatives are put in a tough spot: I have no doubt that had a republican been elected, we would have been in Syria already, and half this country would be accordingly all gung-ho for it. Obama is doing precisely what they would do, except later and lesser (which is why they were calling him "weak on terrorism" and such.) But since they are hell-bent on opposing him at all turns, they must therefore oppose him now.
The liberals are much more interesting, imo. Their natural inclination would be to oppose military intervention. But since Obama is the one championing it, many feel as if they need to support him. Or at least, go through with it so that Obama doesn't look bad. However, by all indications, the liberals are not swallowing it. A military strike is extremely unpopular, country-wide, which means that liberals have jumped ship (or rather, stuck to their guns, despite loyalty to Obama.)
But, politics aside, let's try to look at this rationally.
What would be the objectives of going into Syria? Ostentatiously, it is to make it clear that the use of chemical weapons is going to be punished, and on humanitarian grounds, to protect the civilian population from further attacks.
Though to be honest, I bet it has more to do with oil than anything. Humanitarian crises occur around the world, and we only intervene if there is a threat to our supply of resources.
Anyway, lets go with the party line and assume we would be performing these strikes for humanitarian purposes.
Would a strike achieve these goals?
No one can see into the future. There are a lot of "what ifs" swirling around Syria: What if we do nothing, and they use them again? What if the world laughs at us for not sticking to our guns? What if more lives are lost by our inaction?
And the opposing side: What if our action triggers a larger inflammation? What if our strikes end up killing a substantial number of civilians (it would be naive to think that we'd succeed in killing no innocents)? What if Assad retaliates?
We don't know the future. We can only guess. But, we can look to the past. What has been the result of previous US interventions in the various internal conflicts around the world?
Almost invariably, we get rid of one bad guy, only to find out later that the guy we supported was another crazy awful bad guy. We give arms to the side we want to win, only to have them pointed at us at some later date. We leave the country in worse shape than it was previously-- full of anarchy, bombed out buildings, and dangerous militias. We kill innocent people, and they hate us for it. The rest of the world refuses to work with us because they see us as power hungry war mongers.
Our humanitarian objectives simply aren't met. And I see no reason to assume that they would be met this time around when our history is strewn with such failures.
All very good points. However, it seems to me that you have assumed a military strike against Assad's regime must
"get rid of one bad guy". If there is a strike AND Assad loses to the rebels, then no doubt the strike will have been one contributing factor (of many) to Assad's loss.
However, there is no reason to assume that the strike MUST be of such a magnitude as to be THE sole deciding factor in the outcome of the conflict. The strike only needs to be sufficiently damaging to Assad so as to achieve the goal: punish the use of chemical weapons (thereby deterring their future use, in Syria and anywhere else). How much did Assad's forces gain through the chemical attacks? A U.S.-led strike only needs to cancel that gain, or somewhat more than cancel it, to accomplish the goal. This would leave the balance of the conflict more or less where it was before, except that now the use of chemical weapons has been deterred. That would seem like a net positive change, to me. *EDIT: And to the extent that the strike re-tilted the balance somewhat in the rebels' favor, well, what does Assad have to do, aside from gas civilians, to deserve such a re-tilting?
So, on the assumption that the strike is NOT designed to remove Assad but only to punish the use of chemical weapons, it seems to me that the outcome of the conflict is not fundamentally changed by such a strike: whether we strike, or not, Assad could win, or the rebels could win, or someone worse than Assad could come to power. Whether we strike or not, the outcome is not our responsibility (and we would probably only make things worse by trying to control it). IF Assad loses and IF we strike then sure, the strike will have been one factor. But it will only one of many contributing factors. And the responsibility will lay with Assad, for choosing to use chemical weapons and therefore necessitating an international response. The responsibility will not lay with the U.S. or the world, for having no choice but to respond to the gassing of civilians according to the rules of humanity and international law. Our responsibility for the outcome is the same whether we strike, or not, under these assumptions.
This way of deciding whether or not to strike, it seems to me, is "blind" in the sense that justice should be "blind". If the rebels had gassed civilians, then according to my reasoning, the world would have to respond similarly by punishing the rebels.
But now contrast that to the alternative. The alternative is to say that the U.S. and the world sometimes responds to the gassing of civilians, and sometimes not. And this decision of whether to respond or not, is not primarily based on protecting civilians from gas attacks. Instead, the decision is based on a cynical calibration of our tolerance of the gassing of civilians. We calculate which side we prefer, or what outcomes would serve our interests the most, and we increase or decrease our level of tolerance for gassing civilians based on that. In other words, choosing to exempt Assad from what should otherwise be the "blind" response of the world to injustice is selfish, and cynical.
(I'm not saying anyone in this thread is selfish or cynical, I'm just trying to reason it out as best I can. I could be wrong.)
Weren't people upset at the U.S. and the world for tolerating/enabling Saddam's use of chemical weapons in the 1980s? That was the West making a selfish exemption, based on a similar cynical calculation. It's a shameful part of our history and we shouldn't repeat it.
