Your thoughts on Syria

[Mael]

Americans are agreeing with Obama

Polling suggests a majority of the public is opposed to various kinds of intervention.

I have to say though I don't think Obama really had any intention of intervening. He knows it's deeply unpopular and risky.

Rand Paul made an apt comment on the issue. He said the question for the US government is not whether Assad's regime used chemical weapons(although some will certainly dispute it) but whether a US/international strike eroding Assad's power will increase or decrease the odds of chemical weapons falling into the hands of paramilitary groups who seek to do harm. Paul believes it will increase those odds and so we should not intervene. The public will agree with Paul.

So why ramp up talks of a strike if most believe it will be an unnecessary risk or even counter-productive? I think it's because Russia and others have pushed for a diplomatic resolution. Obama knows if he ramps up talk of a strike Russia will push for diplomatic action more strongly. Syria being Russia's only real ally in the region gives both sides incentive to see this diplomatic action through. Syria's incentive is obviously avoiding a strike while Russia's incentive is seeing its ally avoid said strike. If Assad believes a strike could happen then all sides have an incentive to exercise diplomacy.

There's more to it than that. We could talk about Qatar and the oil and so on but I think the talk of a strike has been largely bluster. If it came down to it, if it was necessary and unavoidable, a strike would certainly happen. But it seems extremely unlikely now with Syria agreeing to hand over and destroy its weapons cache(my understanding).