Yes, it’s been messy. A more cautious president would have ducked it.

[kpete]

Andrew Sullivan:

..............................

"I'm tired of the eye-rolling and the easy nit-picking of the president's leadership on this over the last few weeks. The truth is: his threat of war galvanized the world and America, raised the profile of the issue of chemical weapons more powerfully than ever before, ensured that this atrocity would not be easily ignored and fostered a diplomatic initiative to resolve the issue without use of arms."

Yes, it’s been messy. A more cautious president would have ducked it. Knowing full well it could scramble his presidency, Obama nonetheless believed that stopping chemical weapons use is worth it – for the long run, and for Americans as well as Syrians. Putin understands this as well. Those chemical weapons, if uncontrolled, could easily slip into the hands of rebels whose second target, after Assad and the Alawites and the Christians, would be Russia.

This emphatically does not solve the Syria implosion. But Obama has never promised to.

What it does offer is a nonviolent way toward taking the chemical weapons issue off the table. Just because we cannot solve everything does not mean we cannot solve something. And the core truth is that without Obama’s willingness to go out on a precarious limb, we would not have that opportunity.

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http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/09/10/the-president-makes-the-case/

[alfie]

1. Well put

You must scramble the eggs to make an omelet.

[Sunlei]

2. I'm very proud of President Obama and very worried about what the future holds for the entire world.

what will next week, or tomorrow bring to us all?

[Enrique]

3. "solving it" by threatening bombing

this is a typical hawk rationale for war: "we might as well!"

And one thing about threats: they don't work if people don't believe you. And so if we are going to rely on threatening war to "solve problems", we are going to have to regularly wage actual war.