President Obama's Prudence On Syria Has Become A Strategic And Moral Failure

Red Lines As Red Herrings In Syria -- Richard Cohen, Washington Post

Watching PBS’s “NewsHour” the other night, I caught a debate between two academics about whether the United States should intervene in Syria. The British, French and Israelis say that Damascus has used chemical weapons, although Washington is not as sure. (Do you think George Tenet could find out?) So in the meantime the president will adhere to his policy of doing next to nothing and thus ensure that the war continues. One of the academics wanted America to intervene while the other did not. He kept saying, “We don’t need another war in the Middle East,” having apparently not noticed that one is already underway in Syria. In the movie, he will play Barack Obama.

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My Comment: A brutal editorial from (of all places) The Washington Post. And Richard Cohen is right .... the money quote from his commentary is the following ....

.... Obama’s policy regarding Syria has been a strategic failure. More perplexing and more alarming, it has also been a moral failure. It has permitted — or at least not impeded — the deaths of upward of 70,000 people and created a humanitarian calamity with more than 1 million refugees. The region is being destabilized. People are living in misery. I can assure them that Washington is studying the problem.