THANK YOU ALL FOR THE COMMENTS

It would seem that all of us are uncertain and frustrated by the situation in Syria.  I think, but I really do not know, that making no military moves is the least bad option, but I am painfully aware that it is not I and my family who are being slaughtered, whether by conventional weapons or by unconventional weapons.  Perhaps the only reasonable course of action is to accept the fact that America at this moment can do nothing useful or likely to succeed, and then instead of promptly forgetting about the region, work to make a fundamental change in the purposes that America pursues in the world.  If we were to do this successfully, it might then be that in twenty years we could help to bring about a set of circumstances in which we were able to use our wealth and power for good.

However, since the entire spectrum of American politics from extreme right to progressive left has, for seventy years, pursued fundamentally the wrong foreign policy, the prospect of making a real alteration in that policy seems slender indeed.  If it weren't, Noam Chomsky would be Secretary of State [so to speak.]