Here's my take on Syria.

There are three directions the U.S. can go here.

1. The isolationist, stay the fuck out of there and let them kill each other until they pull their collective heads out of their ass or until the sun falls out of the sky whichever comes first approach. This includes the "we'll show them we will issue economic sanctions against them" approach. No piss ant third world dictator has ever given two shits about economic sanctions. Economic sanctions do not affect his Swiss or Bahamian bank account. They just affect every person that dictator has his foot on's well being not the dictator's well being.

2. The half-assed, straddle the fence approach of this week. Use air strikes, drones, missiles, and whatever other unmanned or low risk military action you can take to inflict damage while making sure no ground troops do anything more useful than "advise" somebody else's ground troops.

3. Full bore Desert Storm/Iraq invasion.

Which one works the best? Easiest answer to any political question in the world today. The answer is none of them. This is the Middle East nothing works here. No strategy, doctrine, or ideology has ever worked here. No strategy, doctrine, or ideology is ever going to work here. Everyone in this part of the world has been bitching, complaining, fighting, or pissing on someone else in this part of the world since the invention of the rock. Forget it Jake it's the fucking Middle East.