Assad's Weapons of Mass Destruction

("A New Level of Depravity from Mr. Assad")

We have been caught in a terrible tug of war between turning a blind eye to the morally reprehensible conduct of Mr. Assad and committing our nation to combat such atrocity. We lost our will for the use of military might after enduring far too many years of mid-East debacles. We were initially led into battle by President Bush under the rubric of destroying those with, we later discovered, non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

For all it has cost us, both economically and in lost lives, we could not even pretend we had accomplished our stated mission. Our efforts have proven woefully ineffective.

It was not merely that Mr. Obama did not hunt down the brutal Syrian leader after he crossed that famous red line with the use of chemical weapons on his own. It was  that Congress and the American people did not support or authorize such an incursion.

And now President Trump, woefully unprepared, must answer the same question that haunted the last administration. Mr. Trump is not cut from the same cloth as President Obama and may well feel less of a moral imperative to intervene. 

But whatever his ultimate decision, it is likely not to lead to a permanent resolution of an imbroglio that will continue to cause aftershocks not only in Syria but around the globe. 

Morality, it seems, is a negotiable commodity.