First published in June, but eerily prophetic. Bilal Ahmed, on going to war again in the Middle East.
I currently have a resident working for me (who is also my friend) who is from Syria, and he has obviously been stressed for a long time; one can imagine that it's gotten a lot worse in the past couple days. In talking with him today, he told me of an incident in which some 200 people were slaughtered (included, according to his friends who told him of it, women and children). This massacre was perpetrated by the opposition. According to him, there is no side on which to fight in Syria; supporting the opposition, if the groups can be called that, is no morally better than the government, as both are murderers. I don't get the impression that my friend is an ardent government supporter, but he is fearful that Syria will devolve into a theocracy if Assad is toppled. Apparently many of the massacres perpetrated by the so called Free Syrian Army are on people who are secularists who will not submit to Islamic Law (my friend kept referring to them as Al Qaeda, but I have no idea how accurate that is). Helping these people gain power is not only morally bankrupt, but will do nothing for the US's interests. I think the media are really making a mess here just like they did with Iraq. A war will be bad for everyone.
It's dependent upon U.S. politics when President Obama is attempting to avoid a domestic battle about him being cowardly or whatever else. Or is attempting to avoid domestic divisions, such as when he didn't have a comprehensive inquiry on the Iraq war.
Yes, but he is definitely not going to be called cowardly here, the GOP has no public sentiment to gain from it. Given the failures of the Iraq war, Obama could have made it a political issue. I'm not sure that divisions in the voting block is what really motivated that choice.