Interesting commentary so far. Interesting to see people who are often not in agreement on issues, seemingly congruent on this one. In the interest of continuing the thinking I will try to address a couple comments.
The UN is not going to do anything here as Syria is a Russian ally. One important factor to remember about Russia is that it has a serious problem with Islamic independence movements. The Russians have been strongly supportive of any government that is more secular against any more fundamentalist opposition movements. Russia will not be allowing any UN action and will use its veto. China likely would also oppose UN action as it does in almost all cases.
I see general agreement that we don't want American ground forces. I don't yet see the outlines clearly of what our bombing accomplishes if we only weaken Assad as he may take out his revenge on his own people and likely consider making Israel a target which would be an invitation for a massive Israeli response. I don't know that they would be a passive player like they were for Saddam when the scuds landed in Israel and they did nothing thus preserving the Bush alliance of the willing in the first Gulf War.
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