Syria: War Has Been a Long Time Coming
The groundwork for whatever might be happening with the U.S. military in Syria has been percolating for a long time.
I wrote in April 2003 that the logic of U.S. actions in the Middle East demanded eventual war on Syria (and I wasn't alone). The Bush adminstration began the sanction crackdown on Syria by 2004, and kept it up.
The tenacious, very long-view neocon foreign policy hawks surrounding Weekly Standard were pushing loudly for that war in 2005, and the Bush administration was listening. (That I've been worried about this since 2003 may, you might say, mean I'm a moonbat ninny who has predicted 8 of the last 4 wars or somesuch cute riposte. It may be, though, that I saw that the people wanting this war are patient and tenacious and influential and cross party and administration lines.)
By last March the war seemed inevitable to many, even though history gives us no reason to be hopeful about the outcome of the U.S. making a better Syria.
It might also be worth Americans' time as we contemplate unleashing the dogs of war over reports from distant lands from self-interested parties to read about knowledgeable people who aren't quite so sure about the supposed chemical attacks, and to recall that even if we know they happened, we don't necessarily know whodunit.
Just kidding, Americans, it doesn't matter what you (or your elected representatives) know, believe, or think about Syria. The administration is going to do whatever it wants.
And remember: how we intervene in our Syria crisis of today will merely be prelude to our Syria crisis of tomorrow, until we return the U.S. military to its constitutional mission of defense and not an endless one of using disruptive mechanized violence against overseas strangers and hoping the results are "worth it."