I read recently that the DoD has about 7000 - 8000 drones in service. I’d assume some of them can fly low and detect air defense radars, and will be the decoys that get the AA to “light up”, and of course, following closely behind will probably be the drones that are carrying the HARM missiles. In addition to hundreds of cruise missiles now on scene, the strikes could be pretty useful at taking out Assad’s air force, and/or decimating his elite troops. Not sure I like how the aftermath will play out, but that’s what I expect for airstrikes. I don’t see a whole lot of manned flights, simply for the bad press that could come from a shoot down.
The winning play here, is to decimate Iran’s nuclear program and their infrastructure that allows them to re-supply Assad. We all know the Iranians were involved is some way with the chemical weapons strikes, and they are involved in this up to their eyelids. Not only that, in attacking Iran, Obama satisfies his “red line” and Iran begins to realize that they can no longer “war game” our responses. Yes, so far they have been playing chess while we have been playing checkers, but the time is ripe for us to play a completely different game. The game from the movie “War Games”.
However the course of action you describe is too logical and makes too much sense to be taken up by this crowd. They do not know what they are doing.