As the Syrian army continues to bombard Homs with artillery and rocket fire, President Obama stated on Monday in an interview on NBC's "Today" program (see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-middle-east-16902819):
"I think it is very important for us to try to resolve this without recourse to outside military intervention. And I think that's possible."
Some seven thousand people have already been killed by Assad's forces during the 11-month revolt against his regime, which Obama had courted since becoming president. After largely ignoring the conflagration for many months, now he thinks it's possible to "resolve" it without military intervention. Sorry, but the only way this chaos will end is when Assad and his family depart for Tehran, at which time we'll see how many Alawites are slaughtered by Syria's Muslim Brotherhood when it ultimately takes power and revenge.
No, I am not in favor of Western military intervention. Although belated American involvement in the overthrow of Qaddafi is now considered by the Obama administration as one of its crowning foreign policy achievements, the flag of al-Qaeda is now flying over Benghazi, and much of Libya's arsenal of antiaircraft missiles has found its way into the hands of terror organizations, particularly in Gaza. I would not count this as a success. Which is not to say that the US doesn't have an interest in the fighting in Syria.
Although the conflagration in Syria is fast becoming a civil war between the majority Sunni population and Alawites, Christians and Kurds afraid of an Islamist takeover, in some ways similar to the tribal conflict in Libya, the stakes in Syria are somewhat different. Although Syria's oil resources are relatively small and quickly being depleted, Syria is the repository of an arsenal of missiles significantly larger than that of Libya, and it has also stockpiled an enormous quantity of chemical and biological weapons. If these weapons, like Libya's antiaircraft missiles, ultimately find their way into the hands of Hezbollah and other terror organizations, the repercussions could be quite serious (see: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israeli-officials-terrorists-may-get-syria-s-weapons-1.411439).
Moreover, Syria holds the key to Iran's Middle East terror network. Without Syrian protective cover, Hezbollah cannot be supplied and will lose control over Lebanon. Iran understands this, and as reported by Haaretz (http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/report-top-iran-military-official-aiding-assad-s-crackdown-on-syria-opposition-1.411402), "Kassam Salimani, commander of the Quds Force, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard special forces unit, has arrived in Syria recently and has taken up a spot in the war room which manages army maneuvers against opposition forces."
This is yet another instance where Obama has failed to understand the dynamics of an overseas crisis and now without a policy - his attempt at courting Assad led nowhere - can only provide commentary from the sidelines.
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