[mistermumble]

I agree that Assad is "stomping on innocents". But so are the rebels he is fighting, namely ISIS and Al Qaeda and similar groups in a smorgasbord of terror. Shall we bomb them too (and thereby strengthen Assad)? Mideast politics are horrendously complicated and need to be untangled carefully, as one would untangle the wiring in a bomb. Unintended consequences are the norm, unfortunately.

[simonh]

Just because an anti-Assad militia is Muslim doesn’t make it a terrorist organization. Approximately everybody in that whole region are Muslim. Of course the rebels are Muslim. A few of them have links to or are affiliated with terrorist organizations, but when you’re involved in a fight for survival you take help from anyone offering it. Fights like this are messy and dangerous and no good ever comes of them. But they still need to be fought. Trump is about to learn this.

[nefitty]

Absolutely right. We shouldn't use the same methods to fight terrorism, though. If one of your opponents plays the centralized-government military game, play by those rules, if another plays by the decentralized-guerilla warfare game, play that. At the end of the day I think it's the US's responsibility, as arguably the most powerful military force on earth, to defend humans caught in the crossfire of other military actors. My support of unilateral action against Assad does not preclude my support for fighting the smaller repressive regimes he claims to be chasing.