Badly.

Editor,

The USA since the implosion of the USSR has demonstrated beyond even a shred of doubt that military force is useless as a means to control political realities.

Assad represents an Alawite minority, which, before his father ascended to power, had been reduced to holing up in the Syrian hills, an oppressed position Assad and his supporters are determined not to visit again.

This fear of a dreaded past revisiting the Alawites lies behind Assad's desperate and foolish, brutal overreaction to demonstrations by similarly oppressed Sunnis who are fed up with him and his police.

Once the first shots were fired on peaceful demonstrators by Assad's thugs, the floodgates opened and fighters of every description, backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others on the Sunni side and Iran and Hezbollah on the Shiite side, spilled into Syria and escalated this conflict beyond all reasonable proportion.

Reaching for cruise missiles like a sheriff reaching for his Colt 45 is pouring gas on a raging fire. The only reason the U.S. could have for doing this is they think they have found a Syrian Chalabi with whom they are going to replace Assad.

Look at Iraq, which after U.S. meddling in their politics is still tearing itself apart 10 years later.

Don't do this.

The solution is in negotiations. Talk to Russia and Iran.

Give something up they want in exchange for cooling this situation down. Shooting missiles is going to end badly.

Re: "The Stakes in Congress" (9/5/2013)