Well, not war—Congress doesn’t actually declare those anymore—but a set of limited missile hits against Syrian weapon sites:
The United States could hit Syria with three days of missile strikes, perhaps beginning Thursday, in an attack meant more to send a message to the Syrian regime than to cripple its military, senior U.S. officials told NBC News.
The disclosure added to a growing drumbeat around the world for military action against Syria, believed to have used chemical weapons in recent days against scores of civilians and rebels who have been fighting the government for two years.
In three days of strikes, the Pentagon could assess the effectiveness of the first wave and target what was missed in further rounds, the senior officials said.
I wrote last night that the most likely American intervention in Syria would be a series of limited missile attacks, which would allow President Obama to say he Did Something about WMDs without actually wrangling with the messy details of the Syrian civil war. I can’t think of any other way to interpret this. Three days of strikes? Top defense officials already admitting to NBC that it’s all symbolic? If there’s a line between peace and war, the president is dancing and gyrating a la Miley Cyrus all over it, making sure to show some skin to both sides. It’s a completely untenable position that will likely result in either the Syrian civil war raging on irrespective of our actions, or, and I think this is more likely, the United States gravitating deeper and deeper into the conflict, which Daniel Larison is calling “interventionist creep.”
Bill Gertz has further details about the build-up:
Pentagon officials said the naval power includes the guided missile destroyers USS Ramage, USS Mahan, USS Gravely, and USS Barry. At least one missile-firing submarine is also said to be in the region. Britain also reportedly has dispatched a missile-firing submarine to waters near Syria.
Potential targets of the strikes include chemical weapons sites and artillery rocket units.
And Jennifer Rubin would like us to know that she knows more about the military’s requirements in Syria than the military itself:
Reports suggest the United States is formulating options for military action against the Syrian regime, despite Gen. Martin Dempsey’s absurd warnings that a force akin to the Normandy invasion would be required.
If you have a few minutes to spare today, copy that sentence into a Word document, cross out the word “Syrian” and replace it with “Iraqi,” then cross out the words “Martin Dempsey” and replace them with “Eric Shinseki.”
