UN report on Syrian gas use comes out, says basically what we already knew or suspected - nerve agent employed, it was sarin but of unspecified quality or concentration, killed many people but not at all clear how many, possibly as low as 200, but Kerry's number of 1429 definitely appears inflated - and delivery system points to Assad regime. Pretty much says what one expected: a somewhat strong circumstantial case that does not clear up the loose ends or fill in troubling blanks and therefore doesn't really change anything - or as Putin would put it: you wanna commit to a 'token' punitive action that threatens to escalate things to a very dangerous level and after you've already agreed to let diplomacy throw a wet blanket over this squalor of incompetency and indecision and empty, strategically incoherent rhetoric, well then go ahead, I dare ya.
All this tough talk from Western leaders is pathetic - Putin has beaten you and the game is over, he identified your weakness and exploited it to his advantage - significant action by the US and the absurdly ineffectual EU would be utterly dependent on the unabashed use of American power and Obama has made it very clear that's not a place he's willing to go to and what's more the American people have made it clear that under his feckless leadership unless you can demonstrate an obvious US interest at stake here, being dragged once more into the Muslim world to solve Muslim problems is not a project they're keen on. Now, you probably could define a real American interest here if you wanted to [Iran for starters] but again, and this is key, addressing the threat to this interest would involve a firm commitment to the use of American power which again is something Obama has clearly demonstrated he has no enthusiasm for - so, yeah, game over.
The only question now is, what will be the fallout from this debacle? Don't know - Iran will obviously be emboldened [if they didn't know before they do now that Obama's dislike of American power makes him vulnerable to manipulation, so expect huge charm offensive from Rouhani that will be all illusion] - and of course Israel will be increasingly on edge - but how that plays out, hard to say. And as said before, if you're China and you have three years left of Obama running American foreign policy, you've got to be at least considering something in the nature of a game changer - occupy the Senkaku Islands or some such thing - but will it happen? Who knows. As for Putin, well, Obama has made Russia a player in the Mideast again and possibly the player there depending on how things pan out - whatever Putin does with this power, it certainly won't be to serve US interests - if Assad survives and Iran builds a nuke, the power dynamic of the region changes dramatically, with Putin leading the way and Obama sidelined - China will lurk off stage but undoubtedly back behind the scenes a Russian/Iranian hegemony in the region - this won't sit well with the Saudis and Putin possibly uses that discomfort to his advantage - many sleepless nights in Israel as they contemplate the possibilities...
[but what if Obama, privately acknowledging how badly he has screwed the pooch here and the bad scenarios that could play out because of it, tries to remedy things with a show of force? Well, I don't think ideologues like him are in any way inclined towards admitting error - they're led by a blind faith in the rightness of their ideals and a reversal like that would be an assault on those ideals, so hard to see that happening - but even if it did happen, does anyone believe anymore that Obama's the man to lead such a thing? I'm pretty sure US military brass don't think he is and are convinced he has a view of American power that is at odds with reality, a reality that Putin embraces with gusto - besides, in objective terms, you don't want to get involved, it was a no win scenario before this mess, worse now - and unless you're going to use the amount of force required to topple Assad, which Obama has clearly indicated he's not going to do, a 'token' display now would just play into Putin's hands and probably achieve nothing aside from further highlighting how ineffectual a president Obama is]
[and as a sidebar to UN report - it says one of the rockets used in the attack - I believe they only studied two of the delivery rockets - one of the rockets studied is of a type fired from an old Soviet launcher that there's no record of Syria having or currently fielding - that seems pretty damn odd - what if Putin has proof that Assad forces couldn't have been behind this attack and releases it now? As bad as Obama looks currently, that would be an absolute humiliation]
