Which Nation is More Powerful, Syria or the U.S.?

Sound silly? Read on.

So far, the U.S. has failed to deter the Assad regime from using chemical weapons, despite Obama's warning that such use would cross a "red line." In fact the regime has used them several times, increasing the size of the attacks.

On the other hand, there is much worrying and anxious hand-wringing in the U.S. elite discussion of what to do about possible "consequences." There is fear of scary things happening, of Assad, Iran, Hezbollah retaliating. Right now, it doesn't even look as if Congress will give Obama a green light for a military attack.

In other words, the U.S. is being deterred by the Assad regime of Syria.

So if Syria isn't deterred by the U.S., but the U.S. is deterred by fear of Syria, which is the more powerful nation?

Shades of Nixon's fear of the U.S. becoming a "pitiful, helpless giant."

Of course it isn't that. The U.S. will attack other nations in the future. In fact it is attacking various Islamists right now in various countries, with drones.

But it's scared of Syria.

Funny, Israel isn't. It keeps bombing stuff there. Just bombed a weapons cache and a convoy earlier this year. Syria pretended it didn't happen. Just like they pretended Israel didn't bomb the nuclear reactor North Korea was building for them.

Too bad the U.S. can't ask Israel to take out Assad's air force for it.

I wonder how much stock Israel is going to put in the U.S.' promises that it'll bomb Iran to stop its nuclear program, so Israel should just keep holding its fire.

Credibility, credibility, credibility...the word is going to haunt the dreams of the American foreign policy mangers if this wimpy vacillating goes on much longer.

But Barack Obama can be tough- on journalists, whistleblowers, dissidents, medical marijuana dispensaries, hapless immigrants without the proper papers- in a word, the weak.

But Assad is too strong for him.

Why do the words "coward" and "bully" (two character traits often linked) spring to mind?

Turns out "French-speaking cheese-eating elitist" John Kerry (Secretary of State) is the tougher one. (Well, of course- he killed people himself in the Vietnam War.) (Contrary to the right wing libel machine, Kerry really did earn his medals there- not that I approve of anyone agreeing to fight in that criminal enterprise.)

To repeat the most important fact in this whole issue: if the U.S. doesn't make Assad pay a price, it is virtually guaranteed that there will be more chemical attacks. And the U.S. will be weaker, its enemies emboldened. If it DOES exact a price, there is a CHANCE Assad will desist in using his nerve gases.

And who should be more afraid of escalation: the weak nation, or the World's Only Superpower?

Yes, the U.S. is hypocritical and cynical. It helped Saddam Hussein use the same gases against "his own people" (the Kurds) and Iranian troops, by supplying targeting information against Iranian soldiers, and by having the Defense Intelligence Agency (the Pentagon's faux-CIA created by Robert McNamara apparently in a fit of CIA-envy) put out a report claiming the Iranians had gasses the Iraqi Kurds. (A Protocols of the Elders of Zion operation.) I suppose the "peace" camp (there IS no peace, there already is a war) would prefer consistency to hypocrisy and have the U.S. permit Assad's atrocities. Yeah, two wrongs always make a right.

Too bad the U.S. bosses won't be honest, own up to their past crimes (and the crimes of their predecessors) including the support for Hussein, and the U.S.' own use of napalm, white phosphorous, tear gas (to asphyxiate Vietcong in underground tunnels, for example), the lies to gin up war fever against Iraq in 2003, all the stuff that undercuts their moral posturing now. Then they could say, We now want to partially atone for our past sins by intervening for the Syrian people.

Anyway, at least give violence a chance. That's all I'm saying.  "Peace" (U.S. passivity) has had two years to work, and hasn't.  Let Vice pay its Tribute to Virtue in the form of Hypocrisy.