Military intervention in Syria remains unpopular:
Sixty-eight percent of Americans say the United States should not use military action in Syria to attempt to end the civil war there if diplomatic and economic efforts fail, while 24% would favor U.S. military involvement.
More to the point, 64 percent of Republicans oppose war there. This is a rare issue which unites far right, center and left. (There is no “right” in the US right now – just pseudo-conservative extremists). Allahpundit adds more context:
The -44 split on intervention is, I believe, the widest gap in any poll taken on this subject, a sign perhaps that the public’s trending away from action in Syria as the McCain-ians beat the Do Something drum more loudly. If you look at the numbers over time at Polling Report, though, you’ll see that when pollsters mention Assad using chemical weapons, the numbers look different.
A Pew poll taken last month found a 45/31 split on whether the U.S. should act militarily if chemical attacks by the regime are confirmed; two weeks ago, CNN got a 66/30 split on basically the same question. There are news reports published as recently as yesterday that Assad’s begun to use chemical weapons more frequently due to the west’s inaction over previous attacks. If Obama does end up deciding that it’s time for a no-fly zone, expect him to hammer the WMD point heavily as a way of building popular support. Realistically, it’s the only way he can sell intervention to the public.
The use of chemical weapons is, of course, horrifying. But the only way in which it affects the US directly is if the weapons eventually arrive here. And the fastest way to achieve that is to take sides in a war that is part of a regional Sunni-Shia conflict in which, in my opinion, the US should have no interest at all. These are forces we cannot fully understand, let alone control. We cannot be callous, but we have to be realistic. And the only realistic policy is to stay the fuck away. That’s why, as Larison argues, the Rand Paul foreign policy may begin to have the power to undermine the war-mongers in the GOP camp:
Even among Republicans, support for military action is an anemic 31%. When the Menendez-Corker bill approving funding for arming the Syrian opposition came up for a vote in committee earlier this month, Paul was the only Republican to vote against the bill, and to date he has been the only member of his party in the Senate to reject any greater U.S. involvement in the conflict. At the moment, he appears to be the only Republican in the Senate taking the side in the Syria debate that is favored by the vast majority of Americans and most Republicans. He is betting that his dissents from the party’s reflexive hawkishness are some of what will appeal to most Americans, and that “muscular positions” on foreign policy are exactly what most of us want Republican politicians to abandon.
The Dish 