The talks over Syria have gone nowhere and so the chorus rises again.
"Obama is a wuss."
"Something must be done."
"Nobody will take us seriously if we do not act."
As before, the only action on the table is dropping explosives on the Bashar al-Assad forces in Syria. Bash Bashar, as it were.
If we are going to consider that, it would be good to do so with eyes wide open.
For a change.
I'm thinking out loud about it below the fleur-de-kos.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that Bashar al-Assad....like Saddam Hussein, like Muammar al-Gaddafi, like (fill in the blank) is a bad actor with genocidal tendencies, by which I mean he will kill children over the beliefs of their parents.
Zbigniew Brzezinski pooping the party on The Daily Rundown:
1. It's a sectarian struggle between Sunni and Shia. We have no position and we can't "win" and it's a regional struggle that cannot be contained within Syria.
2. Our dealings with Russia have many moving parts, of which Syria is not even the biggest one. Why screw up all of that?
3. If the humanitarian arguments are so clear, why is the rest of the world telling the US "why don't you and them fight?"
It comes down to what Colin Powell used to call "the Pottery Barn theory." We own what we break and we don't want to own the Sunni and Shia argument.
Isn't it already broke?
It is, but we didn't break it, and in the Middle East, "broken" is a relative term. Just when you think it can't get worse, it gets worse.
Don't we already own it?
Well, in the sense that most of our allies are Sunni scum rather than Shia scum. The present unpleasantness was started by Sunni scum, our nominal allies.
It's also true that we're all about counting votes and there are more Sunni in the world than Shia.
If that's the logic, then I suppose we should declare it the public policy of the US that Abu Bakr and his line were the proper successors to the Prophet rather than Ali and his.
We might just has well send our sons and daughters to die for the cause of suppressing Ali's heretical views, because that's the mission, the same mission as in Iraq...except that Saddam Hussein was an Abu Bakr guy and we installed an Ali government, which would naturally unite behind the tip of the Shia spear, Iran.
Every fight in that region dims beside the the clash between Sunni and Shia. Neither side of that fight gives a hoot about US interests except insofar as our power can be harnessed in that clash.
When the Prophet ascended, his followers believed succession could be decided by force. They still believe that today.
Do we?