The question has been asked, “Why is it OK to kill 99,000 people with bombs and guns but start a war over 1,400 deaths by chemicals?”
So Assad hands over the chemical weapons and continues on fighting the rebels. I guess the rebels get to keep the chemical weapons they have?
The chemical business is just a pretext for a US intervention to back a revolt that is not doing well.
I don’t recall what pretext we used with Gaddafi, but its the same thing. When the rebels started losing we came in and bombed them to victory.
Now, from the US point of view there are very good reasons to get rid of Assad, mainly in that it weakens the Iranian government, switches the Lebanese balance of power, gets Israel a Syrian state that less capable of making serious trouble, and gives the Russians and Chinese a black eye. But these reasons are not things the US government - any US government - can discuss openly.
The US and the Sunni Arab coalition backing the rebels screwed up badly early on, or perhaps the tool in question was just never going to be up to the job. Now that the Syrian rebels are thoroughly corrupted by the Jihadis and the US is already looking weak on the matter, it may be best for the Syrian thing to be left to take its course.