The Consequences

Is the U.S. a paper Tiger? I think not.

However, since the Terrorist war has killed so many of our people since 2001 and taken away so much of our finances we are a product of "Once bitten and twice shy" in regard to further examples of our reactions to attacks upon us.

However, now the tables have turned and a completely new world dynamic has emerged and the question becomes: "Can Syria with Hezbollah's, Russia's and Iran's help" get away with using Sarin Gas (most likely) on it's civilian population? The answer the world gave Saddam Hussein regarding his gassing of a whole village of Kurds eventually was "NO!" And unfortunately whether our military actions bring down Assad or not our message to him must be: "You cannot get away with this!" And if your government falls it is precisely because of your inhumanity to your citizens that it is falling!

So, this is not only a message to Assad but also to those who have let this happen on their watch and who did not stop it themselves.

However, as a nation we also will have to live with the consequences of the potential end of Assad's government. There will be no cohesive government to replace it with if it falls. There is no history of democracy in Syria and we have seen democracy flailing in Libya and Egypt. So there is no likelihood of Democracy working in Syria unless Syria becomes a part of Turkey for awhile which isn't very likely either.

So, there are no good choices. However, to prevent an actual nuclear war in the future likely there is no choice now but to militarily change things a lot in Syria now. By drawing a red line in the sand likely we will prevent a nuclear world War III even if we witness a world war II in the middle east without nuclear weapons soon among the countries there.