I think Ramesh Ponnuru has it right. Maybe the Obama administration has a plan to use military force in a decisive way, but they haven’t made the case for a large and sustained military operation if it comes to that. A military attack that is not decisive opens the possibility that the US will have committed an act of war against the Syrian regime without actually securing victory. That sounds like bad business to me (worse than Obama not acting on his statement regarding use of chemical weapons.) If there is ever a case of going to Congress for a use of force authorization, this is it. I hope the Obama administration has more wisdom than I’m seeing.
