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I don’t disagree with most of that, in some sense, but it still “violates” civilized(?) concepts of how wars are fought. I think fear needed to rule is still the big factor: If Assad kills or drives out most everyone but the surviving Alawites and a few others (some Christians, etc.), he ends up with not much to rule. He needs most of the population alive, but cowed. Otherwise, this never ends, because he winds up with a resentful majority, with plenty of outside players with money who still want to stir up trouble, and all this IS in the ME, after all, where infighting & killing is the regional sport.

As far as “logical” goes, setting aside the in-country fear factor, Assad’s logic is further flawed: While much of the West can’t do much because of those defense cuts you mentioned, the West does recognize that used of “WMD” by 2nd and 3rd world parties just CANNOT be allowed to get out of hand. And we (the US) are still out there as the heavily armed “policeman”, like it or not. SOMEBODY has to take that role. Who else would FReepers prefer? The risk to most of the civilized world of not taking action is just too great to hide from. The Khadafys, Saddam Husseins, and Assads must at some point be shown such actions (chemical attacks, etc.) are intolerable, even if those they are unleashed upon “deserve it”.

Now, the all above IS predicated on proof Assad is to blame. I am not sure of that. Yes, that means that if a US allied group did it... we should smack them, instead. Hard.

Something else occurred to me. What if Trump’s statement about getting out of Syria was a “test” to see if Assad would do something stupid?

People read into statements what they want to believe. April Glaspie made the perfectly innocuous statement that the US doesn’t get involved in bi-national disputes over borders. It wasn’t a green light for Saddam to invade and annex all of Kuwait. But that was exactly what Saddam did. Assad, as someone who inherited his position is likely far less politically-savvy than Saddam was. Trump likes to make black and white pronouncements devoid of nuance. However, every Twitter statement he makes has pages and pages of notional fine print attached, which is why DACA is still in force and the wall remains unbuilt.

But to expect Assad to figure this out is asking too much of him. Syria’s civil war is the result of Assad’s less than perfect balancing act vis-a-vis the jihadis he fed and sheltered during the US occupation of Iraq. Once the American Satan left, they turned their attention to him. He is experiencing blowback of a regime-threatening nature because he’s just not that perceptive a politician.

As to Trump, he doesn’t know foreign policy from a hole in the ground. And that’s not a criticism. People are specialists. The average billionaire isn’t exactly an expert either. Reagan was well-versed in all of this because he spent decades in and out of public service and was a Republican Party commentator. The reason to pick Trump over Hillary on foreign policy was because Hillary “knew” a lot of the background facts that weren’t actually true, and even when they were true, she drew the wrong conclusions from them.