Destroy Assad’s Regime, or Hold Your Fire

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Syria is the moral and strategictest that U.S. President Barack Obama neither sought nor wanted.He had done his best to avert his gaze from its horrors. He, theself-styled orator, had said very little about the grief ofSyria and the pain of its children. When he spoke of Syria, itoften sounded as though he was speaking of Iraq -- the prismthrough which he saw the foreign world and its threats.

In his first term, his four principal foreign policyadvisers -- the secretaries of state and defense, the directorof the Central Intelligence Agency, and the chairman of theJoint Chiefs of Staff -- supported arming the rebellion inSyria: He overrode them. Earlier this year, he himself promisedthe rebels weapons that were never delivered.