Should Obama have invaded Syria when he had the chance?

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I recently saw an interview with Carly Fiorina in which she said something along the lines of "3 years ago Obama had options available to him in Syria but he chose not to act".

I can remember around that time that a number of people on TV including Christiane Amanpour and John McCain were saying this, that (US-led) military action in Syria was desperately needed, presumably to "kick Bashar al-Assad's butt" in the same manner Saddam Hussein's butt was kicked by Obama's predecessor a few years previously.

Should we be upset that this didn't happen?

It wouldn't be easy now, and it wouldn't be easy then with fresh Syrian troops and all their weapons and supplies. It would basically be the same situation as Iraq. Easy to bomb the big stuff, then difficult to maintain any kind of peace afterwards.

Several terrorist organizations are locked in armed conflict against each other in Syria. It could be argued that peace is premature at this point in time. Keeping all sides equally armed is probably what we should strive for.

Although I do not believe that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Assad is currently fighting against possibly the most depraved terrorist organisation we've ever seen. It's a good job he's still there.

Obama never had the chance of invading Syria. His threat was to bomb air and army bases, in support of CIA forces.

All of the CIA troops would shoot Americans. Half were the FSA, who for the money would become the Flee Syria Army. The other half were told they could have an Islamic State, same story told in Afghanistan.

Somehow, this group of hundreds would overthrow an army of a million, supported by Iran and Russia.

When the American terrorists were setup in Syria, all of the warehouses of weapons, food, medical supplies were stolen by the Islamic faction. American lost control. The supplies used to overthrow Assad were used to invade Iraq. With Saudi funding ISIS was born.

The first thing they did was behead some CIA Agents. Since then they have made utube videos, lost ground to the Kurds, and been the target of bombing raids.

In the east the advance was stopped, and in the west they have lost ground to Assad.

They control a lot of desert with very few men.

Obama has been sending troops to Iraq, but the advance against ISIS has come to a halt.

Obama cannot retake Anbar in Iraq, without the loss of thousands. Holding it would take an occupation army for twenty years. Invading Syria would have a very high death toll, and then have to fight ISIS.

I thought Bush was dumb, Obama has outdone him.

I fail to see how obama is at fault for any of that.

Syrian situation is going to be tragic no matter how it is played out.

Republicans think a US led coalition should have gone in right away and gain control of the country which would have been a difficult thing to do and the Syrians, strong and not war weary would have definitely NOT welcomed it. Psychologically, many Syrians might have indeed felt the need to rebel which would be a horrible situation for Europe and the West in general. It would have been viewed as another assault on Islam.

This is a lose/lose situation and we have seen how it has played out in Iraq, when the US invaded a strong Islamic nation, and Syria was even stronger than Iraq since it hadn't been sanctioned. It would have been an utter disaster to "invade" Syria under the guise of a freedom in democracy crusade.


Right now the Syrians, unfortunately, are being beaten down psychologically and sometimes, physically, by the horrors and hardships of war. It's very difficult for the world to watch but it is, in actuality, pushing them closer and closer to the west and accepting outside help to resolve the situation in their country.

The refugees are being increasingly accepted by Western countries. This will help soften Syrians if an invasion becomes reality rather than have resentful people angry at their country and the West, both, who cannot be remedied by either and will be receptive to the message of the extreme Islamists.

Unfortunately, sometimes humans only value peace when it follows a destructive and tragic war. For the answer to why that is, we need to search within ourselves as a species instead of pointing fingers at each other.

He didn't have a chance, because congress would have quickly passed a law preventing it.
He has never had the votes in either house to get full authorization for Syria.

I think in coming months he and congress will be forced to intervene begrudgingly in Syria, in part due to Russia helping Assad, and ISIS being ISIS.
Also Europe will soon be ready to act to stem the massive migration of Syrians.

Unlikely. Russia won't go on the offensive. The West will most likely continue to use Syria as a training ground for sporadic target practise on buildings, facilities, and heavy equipment. A fight between your enemies should be nurtured, not prematurely ended in the name of peace.

We should not get involved in a civil war in a foreign nation.

Hell no, there wouldn't of even been a civil war without the encouragement of the US and our likely covert agitators on the ground. We created ISIS, ISIS does not exist unless the US invades Iraq. That blood is on our hands and more interventionist foreign policy is just pouring gas on the fire. This was all totally predictable, in fact I think I said it at the time that this would happen.

Carly Fiorina is an idiot and the worst kind of neocon, John McCain's lil apprentice because she was an incompetent CEO who was despised by those under her who almost single handedly drove Hewlett-Packard into the ground and laid off 30,000 workers. She isn't qualified to be elected dog catcher let alone president, she's a joke.

Actually HP was already on the downward slope when she took office.
She literally bugged the board room to spy on the board itself and her upper management to ensure she got her way.
She then bought Compaq, which forced many of the layoffs due to redundancy.
She was ousted and her successors couldn't get much done other than buying palm for their WebOS and EDS.

Meg Whittman as CEO was the act of desperation.
She laid off over 100k+ employees and split the company in two new companies which will be completed this fall.

Besides being a bad idea in the best of times, our troops are war weary and tired. Besides, there is a 40,000 force reduction. We are still bogged down in Afghanistan, and up to 400 or more troops sent to Iraq.

Syria was bad, but the four million that left were not the loyal forces. The quarter million killed were some civilians, but half and half draftees and ISIS. The professional Syrian Arab Army is still functioning.

Both Russia and Iran have been active in supporting Syria. Arms, fuel, a recent 100,000 tons of wheat. They also sent military advisors, with radar and satellite intelligence. Lebanon has been sending troops.

American bombing cannot win, but they degraded ISIS. Large scale troop movements are impossible. What they want to keep they have to hide in civilian areas. Supply lines are cut, ISIS is losing men. No more rapid advances, no sending tanks and trucks captured in Iraq to Syria.

Syria is strongest along the coast, and coming at them through Iraq means fighting ISIS who have no line of retreat.
Syria and the Kurds surrounded a town with 1200. It is still a standoff. There are a lot of civilians, so the town cannot just be leveled. ISIS would fight to the death in the rubble.

In the old city in Homs the siege lasted a year and a half.

American troops would be taking on Syria and ISIS.

Only if EU gives the green light and there's no indication they will do that. They seem poised to take on refugees, not poised to go to war over Syria.

We would not win in Syria, people need to understand that. We could kill Assad sure but then ISIS takes over the entire country which we have zero interest in facing head on. Do you want to total ethnic cleansing of Syria and for ISIS to have land from the Mediterranean to the Golan Heights to Mosul. It's our Sunni Muslim allies who are demanding Assad's head, its from these countries that these Islamist insurgents come from and facilitated from. The only way to win is to not play. Why would anybody want to double down on the Iraq War? We created this mess on our own, we can't fix it with more of the same which will only fuel the growth further.

Obama would never gone in whole-heartedly. The conventional wishy-washy approach to war that this country has is pathetic. If you aren't going to wage total war, don't wage any war.