Syria And The Guns Of August

Syrian President Assad and U.S. President Obama. The Telegraph

Obama’s Guns Of August -- Fred Kaplan, Slate

President Obama will likely bomb Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria. Here is the logic—and limits—for the president’s plan of attack.

It seems likely that President Obama will bomb Syria sometime in the coming weeks.

His top civilian and military advisers are meeting in the White House on Saturday to discuss options. American warships are heading toward the area; those already there, at least one of which had been scheduled for a port call, are standing by. Most telling perhaps is a story in the New York Times, noting that Obama’s national-security aides are studying the 1999 air war in Kosovo as a possible blueprint for action in Syria.

In that conflict 14 years ago, ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, an autonomous province of Serbia, were being massacred by Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. President Bill Clinton, after much reluctance, decided to intervene, but couldn’t get authorization from the U.N. Security Council, where Russia—Serbia’s main ally—was certain to veto any resolution on the use of force. So Clinton turned to NATO, an appropriate instrument to deal with a crisis in the middle of Europe.

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More Commentaries And Analysis On U.S. Policy Towards Syria

Obama will bomb Syria -- Aaron David Miller, Politico
Is a US attack on Syria now inevitable? -- Mark Mardell, BBC
Is Bombing Syria Obama’s Best Bad Option? -- Michael Tomasky, Daily Beast
Obama prepares to attack Syria -- Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune
Syria will require more than cruise missiles -- Eliot A. Cohen, Washington Post
Syria's escalating crisis -- Deepak Tripathi, Al Jazeera
America Must Respond to the Atrocities in Syria -- Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations
Syria: Obama has little choice except to respond, but will he punish Assad or destroy the regime? -- David Blair, The Telegraph
The Syrian Question -- Dexter Filkins, New Yorker
The Two Big Reasons Obama Might Strike Syria -- Michael Crowley, Time
Israel estimates US will attack in Syria -- Ron Ben-Yishai, YNet
Assad’s ‘Nuclear Option’ -- Kelsey D Atherton, War Is Boring
In Syria, America Loses if Either Side Wins -- Edward N. Luttwak, New York Times
How to Wage War Against Assad -- Anthony Cordesman, Real Clear World/CSIS
Whatever Comes Next, Syria Is Forcing a New U.S. Strategy for the Middle East -- Kevin Baron and Stephanie Gaskell, Defense One
After reported gas attack in Syria, US must weigh intervention in light of history -- Paul Thomas Chamberlin, Christian Science Monitor