Monday night, across six television networks, President Obama publicly reversed course in his determination to launch a unilateral war against Syria. Grabbing a lifeline extended by Syria’s best friend Russia, Obama agreed to consider a proposal blundered into by Secretary of State John Kerry that would allow Syria to avoid war if they surrendered their chemical weapons. As a likely result of America blinking, as Reuters reports, Syrian “jets returned to the sky to bomb rebel positions in Damascus for the first time since the West threatened force.”
It is not unrealistic to believe that Obama’s reversal has emboldened a Syria that now sees the administration as checkmated by Russia, unable to sell its war even to a Democrat-led Senate, and now looking for any way to avoid military action.
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