Fred Hof writes: No one in the history of the Syrian conflict has counseled Mr. Obama to invade and occupy Syria, fighting Iranian forces in the process. Fifty-one conscience-stricken State Department officers recently pressed upon him a variation of what others, in and out of government, have urged him for years to do: use limited military means to exact a price for mass homicide in an effort to deter it. For years the president has said no. The consequences for Syrians, their neighbors, and European allies have been staggering, as a country that began the war with 23 million people gradually empties itself. And ISIS — the author of heinous atrocities abroad — is in large measure a consequence of Assad regime mass homicide unchecked by the civilized world.

Yet whenever presented with modest proposals for measured pushback, Mr. Obama and his communications mavens deploy an army of straw men to counterattack. They have exploited the understandable, if misguided reluctance of Americans to do anything at all of a military nature in the Middle East after the experience of Iraq.

ISIS — partly the result of Assad-induced state failure in Syria — is the exception. But Assad himself — a protégé and employee of Iran — has been spared entirely, even though a straight line runs from his practice of mass homicide in Syria to the ‘Brexit’ vote in the United Kingdom and the rise of Vladimir Putin lookalikes in the politics of the West. Iran is the key to understanding why the Obama administration immolated its own reputation in the 2013 ‘red line’ fiasco, and why it continues to look the other way while Assad and his enablers enjoy an unrestrained crime spree. [Continue reading…]