[Tricorn]

No, a more accurate analogy would be this: You've been successfully defending your house with a revolver against knife-weilding hoodlums for years. Now you're being attacked by machinegun and cannon-toting robbers. Your gun, while very effective against knives, is useless. Rather than lose your gun, you give it to your neighbor and go into hiding. Once the danger has cleared, you come out, reacquire the gun and continue to lord it over the local knife people.

Shipping the WMD off to Syria makes perfect sense. (Remember the Iraqi air force during the first Gulf War? Same thing here. In fact, as far as analogies goes, this is a far better one than the knife-gun scenario.)