There has been lots of discussion in this forum about what the U.S. should be doing in Syria and Iran. And lots of criticism of President Obama for seemingly not doing anything with regard to either, other than some rather tepid rhetoric. He's not drawn a line in the sand on either situation, threatened to take action, or even made strong threatening statements.

So let's make some choices here. If you were the POTUS, what would you do?

First of all, our unprovoked attack on either Syria or Iran would, in the opinion of almost all observers, result in a major regional land war. Our military is "sized" and has been for some time, to be able to fight two major wars simultaneously. For a couple of years we were "full up", with major deployments of forces to both Iraq and Afghanistan. At this point we are essentially out of Iraq. And we say we're going to leave Afghanistan in a year or two, although most experts say we'll have a major deployment of troops in that country for as much as a decade.

So it's probably fair to say we have a military force sized and funded to fight two wars at a time, and we're fighting one and will be for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, our military, particularly the Army and Marines are pretty "worn out", with much of their fighting forces having experienced more combat time as the result of multiple deployments than at any time in history.

As POTUS, you know all this. Unfortunately, so do those who may oppose us or eventually fight against us.

So, given the outcry from many of the more hawkish Americans that we should be "doing something" to both stop the slaughter of innocents in Syria, plus do whatever it takes to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon...what should we do? What would YOU do if you were POTUS?

Hmmm, not an easy question. Maybe it explains why Obama is so quiet on both issues, don't you think? No other country in the world is doing anything about those situations either, not even the major powers that could do something (like Russia or China or the U.K.), or countries neighboring both Syria and Iran (like Turkey or Saudi Arabia).

I'm not excusing Obama for saying nothing. But I will speak for myself. If I were in his shoes, I'm not at all sure what I'd say or do either.