To hear the White House talk, President Obama isn’t attacking Syria because he “got his way” on a chemical weapons deal that was never really couched publicly as an option, while his impending defeat in Congress suggests that a big part of the backdown was the sheer unreasonableness of attacking in the face of explicit Congressional opposition.
The truth is that there are lots of reasons why this war, which never made much sense to begin with, has been making less and less sense as time went on, not the least of which is Syria’s rebels.
Nominally the “good guys” in the civil war, the Obama Administration has been publicly backing the rebels for years, yet finds the groups he was openly backing a mess of infighting, and the bulk of the rebellion now dominated by al-Qaeda.
That’s not a separate issue from the Congressional defeat, at least not entirely, for concerns of being “al-Qaeda’s air force” in the ongoing civil war was an argument used by some opponents of the intervention.
And while the “pro-US” rebels are now bashing the lack of war, the reality is their own lack of organization has made it really hard for even a lot of hawks to get on their side, and ultimately played a role in keeping America out of a war that the administration really wanted, but couldn’t sell.
Yes, the Administration did really want this war.
That needs a closer look. Does it mean the Administration will really want to attack Iran? I don't think so. It is something else. I suspect it is R2P gone wild, fears of Rwanda combined with Clintonian lies about the success of our Balkans intervention. What we did in the Balkans was no more a success than the Surge, but the political claim of success, a lie, is as powerful as actual success. These lies have consequences, and do real damage because they cause repeats.
These rebels never had the support of majority of Syrian nationals, so, they were disarrayed to start with, what keeps them fighting is Europe and US double moral and language promising them the rose garden when and if they win this war, the Saudis and others paint a richness life if they win the war, while they double their profit by rising the oil prices in USA and EU. The Syrian war, as every other unjust wars orchestrated by EU and USA has been a business class war, non of these wars has been about democracy nor such laughable matter exists at time and those whom are elected as a democratic politicians nor they are working fir their people, non of them would have a clear thought about democracy nor able to define the word. give you an example, demand fir Nancy Pelosi or Barbara Boxer, or McCain or Kerry to define the word. What they have done for last 65 years is their way proving their success in democracy by having more of millions of dollars conducting business helping oil and corporations-companies to have more profit while they are paid by american working man and women-taxpayers.
You are right, the word 'Democracy' is use by politicians in a crisis when it is necessary, they haven't a clue how it works and when to apply it. Look what happened when they tried to apply it to the middle east, a total failure.
In regard to Middle East, Israel apartheid regime was created as THE "democratic" model by the English to slave the Arab nationals and for Israel to be the master by stealing their homes and lands, they even killed Americans for that.
Kerry claims bombing Syria is not "going to war". It is an act of aggression. Since there is no declaration of war, the aggression has to be seen as an act of terrorism. How would the US respond to bombs falling on it without any declaration of war. We know because we saw the response to 911 which the administration claimed was perpetrated by Al Qaida. Bombing Syria with no justification is an act of terrorism, state terrorism. Any troops captured will not be prisoners of war, but captured criminals. They wont enjoy protection of the Geneva Convention, but could be tried for subversion and terrorism and the penalty for this in many countries is death by firing squad. Everyone involved would be guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. They should be tried, even if it is in abstentia. None of them would be able to leave the US again. The US would be a terrorist state that supports and harbours terrorists. We know this already happened in Iraq and no one did anything to the terrorists who walk the earth freely. But a time will come when this will change. This may well be it.