President Obama announced today he has authorized force in Syria but will ask for approval from Congress when they return on September 9th.

He also dismissed the lack of support from the UN and the international community.

It is worth noting that in the past he has said moving without such support is wrong. He also did not say what he would do if Congress fails to give him approval but he did state he felt he could act without such authorization.

It is worth noting that Senator and Candidate Obama felt that the President could not act without Congressional approval (absent a direct threat of attack on the US) and that we should not act without international approval. Now it seems that he has changed his mind. In this vein he is clearly wrong. The war power rests with the Congress and if they fail to give him authorization he is cannot act.

It is also worth noting that Senator Obama would probably have opposed authorizing such force had another President asked for it.

Most importantly however we have to ask if the proposed action is the right thing to do.

By all accounts we are looking at air strikes and some missile attacks. Such attacks are unlikely to solve the problem he addressed.

Generally speaking you cannot blow up chemical weapons without releasing the chemical poisons. So if we try to blow those weapons up we would just release the gas and kill thousands of people.

We can disrupt their air force by blowing up planes and airstrips but the airstrips can be repaired and the planes replaced. We can blow up other military forces but again they can be replaced.

Regime change does not appear to be part of the plan (nor should it be) so the same monster who is being attacked for using chemical weapons would remain in power and would have those weapons after the attacks are done. What exactly would this accomplish other than kill a bunch of civilians ?

And of course regime change would not be a good idea because the rebels are basically Al Qaeda and similar groups so we’d be getting rid of bad for worse.

I obviously am horrified by what Assad did but we could find dozens of countries where the leadership has done and is doing horrifying things to the people. We just can’t fix everything and in the case of Syria there is no good option.