If Not Assad, Who?

The case against intervention in Syria is morally agonizing but practically irrefutable, in my mind:

Washington's experience in being taken for a ride in Iraq by carpetbaggers such as Ahmed Chalabi should have taught them that a thorough political due-diligence check is better than hoping that you have backed the right horse because they tell you what you want to hear. Hence the appropriate reluctance to confer on any group the title of 'legitimate representatives of the Syrian people', given the political and legal ramifications of such recognition.