So it seems the US government is at it again with the WMD call to war. What gives?

Demonstrated use against civilians leaving over a hundred dead?

Assuming it wasn't a false-flag operation. I'm quite willing to allow that it probably isn't, but I'd prefer to see more evidence of that.

The narrative is, that the US have made the threat of an intervention, in case WMDs are used, in the hope, that this prevents the use of them. Unfortunatly not everyone has been deterred and the US are now maneuvered into a corner, because either they have to intervene, which they actually would rather prefere not, or be exposed as bluffers.

Regardless of the actual truth of that narrative, this seems at least like way more competent Machivellism, then the Iraq WMD narrative. By painting themselfs as being in a corner, the US do not wake any unreaslistic expections about what an attack can achieve, provide an exit strategy that can be used even if nothing is achieved (now you see we did not bluff, so we can stop that operation), and it leaves an opening to diplomatic solutions, that do not require a face loosing surrender of the opponents (Yeah technically we are required to attack, but coincidently just now there is such a good opportunity for negotiating a cease fire, that is more important, then us showing how tough we are).

How about the option of just not doing anything? The militants are most likely backed by Al-Queda (or however you spell it) and The current leadership of the country doesn't like us. So it is lose lose, no matter which side we support. Also it's not even certain that the government used the chemical weapons. There are possibilities it was the militants.

I consider it possible, that this was actually the strategy of the US, and they made the "if WMD" threat as token support, and expected that they never have to actually do anything. Last i read is that the US and GB goverment have admitted that who is responsible is not yet certain. It might be that the current threat with an intervention, especially with the backpaddeling afterwards, is much ado, to hide the reluctance to actually intervene. It is also possible that i see cunning strategies, where there is actually incompetence at work.

Now in Syria one problem is, that initially rebels were more pro western (or dressed up at being so) and only when their cause got stuck and they got most aid from fundamentalists, the fundamentalist section of them got dominant. Overall i think it is a good long term strategy, that the US backs, but not steers popular rebellions*. If things go well, they were on the right side. If things go bad, they still can say that they did the right thing, but it did not work because someone else messed up.

In Syria at the beginning of the confict a "we will intervene if WMDs are used" threat could be read as (weak) backing of the rebels, without doing an intervention and an implementation of above policy. In the specific case, it seems to have maneuvered the US in a corner**, so it has not work that well in middle range. But again, i might see strategy, where there is incompetence.


* They missed Bahrein though
** Unless getting into that corner was a Machiavellian maneuver as i speculated in my earlier post.

Just remember we were lured into Viet Nam by an attack that never really happened. It's all smoke and mirrors. Plus, the American populace is getting fed up with all these wars.

The American populace hasn't felt the impact of a war since Vietnam.

Which does not instantly veto them being fed up with them.

The most glaring thing to me is that essentially the Obama administration is doing exactly what the Bush administration did in Iraq, there are some minor nuanced changes, but the playbook is exactly the same.

Possibly an accident.

Oh yeah that has been all over the place except the white house today said it was the government that did it.

I'm sorry but this is a load of crap. The White House is talking tough but the investigation is still ongoing. Please explain how the Obama administration which, until now, has been dragging its feet to do anything whatsoever about Syria despite internationally reported facts of the Assad regime killing thousands is acting just like the Bush administration that set up the Office of Special Plans for the purpose of stovepiping intelligence to convince the country war with Iraq was necessary.

The Obama administration has been caught in a no-win situation. If he said nothing about Syria he would have been attacked as not caring about the situation. If Assad has crossed the red line of using chemical weapons the US will have to do something or we will lose any credibility we have left.

The two situations are only superficially similar.

Right now the US is contemplating air strikes to uphold the international norm, enshrined in the Geneva Conventions, that using chemical weapons ever is a no-no. It seems like a weird and arbitrary rule (you can bomb people to smithereens but no poison gas?) but countries got together and made that rule because nobody wanted to see a repeat of the mustard gas of World War I. The air strikes are being considered pretty much purely for the purpose of punishing Assad for breaking this rule. Nobody wants to get involved in a wider war, help the rebels, or remove Assad from power because whoever follows him will probably be worse. They just want to lob some missiles at Syria to say "No! Bad dictator! No gassy!"

Whereas in 2003, the WMD argument was a pretext for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. The US wanted a big war. They had grandiose dreams of reshaping the entire Middle East to suit American interests. And we all know how that turned out.

The President just announced he will seek authorization from Congress. That's another huge difference from the last administration. It would be interesting if Congress didn't grant the authorization, but I seriously doubt that would happen.