[Niten]

That comparison is quite the stretch, though.

The currently debated reaction to Syria's chemical weapons attack is a limited response intended to punish the Assad regime, to attempt to reduce its ability to launch more such attacks in the future and to provide it with a disincentive to do so.

It would not be an attempt to topple the regime or to take over Syria for American interests.

Further, the use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war as a pretext for invading Iraq in 2004 is, as we all know, extremely disingenuous, given that these attacks happened more than a decade prior – and with the support of the U.S. at the time:

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/8/26/new-document...

[EDIT: I'm not arguing in favor of the U.S. intervening in Syria, though, least of all without proper congressional authorization.]