Friday, September 19, 2014

Unbelievably Small Red Line

At this point, I'm not sure Assad pays attention to us when he and his patron find killing enemies more effective than our words:

The Syrian military's air defenses would face retaliation if Syria attempted to respond to U.S. air strikes that are expected against Islamic State targets in Syria, senior U.S. officials said on Monday.

Why do we bother with the warnings? We're clearly beyond the point of people worrying that we'll act.

Which doesn't mean we won't act, of course. It just means that our enemies are more likely to provoke us and trigger our eventual response as we seek to rebuild our reputation for being a serious ally and enemy.