Cutting to the Chase

[Andrew D]

The bottom line remains the same: Either Assad gets away with using chemical weapons against civilians, or he does not.

If he does, the consequences can only be bad: He will be more likely to do so again, other dictators will be encouraged to do so, terrorist groups will be more likely to get their hands on chemical weapons, our allies will not believe us when we issue other pronouncements about what will and what will not be tolerated, etc.

Those consequences can in some cases be averted, and in other cases ameliorated, by the infliction on the Assad regime of detrimental consequences sufficient to demonstrate both (1) that the use of chemical weapons against civilians will not be tolerated under any circumstances and (2) that the adverse consequences of using chemical weapons against civilians will outweigh whatever might inure to the benefit any regime that does so.

Putting Assad's chemical weapons under international control might -- or, given the international community's tendency toward hapless bungling rather than effective action, might well not -- prevent (or at least deter) Assad from using such weapons against civilians again. But it will do virtually nothing to prevent (or even deter) other regimes and non-state actors from using chemical weapons against civilians.

So for those of us who care about the use of chemical weapons against civilians, the relevant question is whether we will allow the use of chemical weapons against civilians to go unpunished. And the answer should be readily apparent: No.

[Andrew D]

I am not suggesting that the US set itself up as the world's moral compass, Sean. On the issue of the use of chemical weapons against civilians, the world's moral compass has been set by the overwhelming (and even that is too weak word) majority of the world.

What I am saying is that the US should be willing to use its overwhelming (again, too weak a word) power to enforce what the world has already decided.

And that does not require the US to have entirely clean hands. After all, who has entirely clean hands?

[rubato]

Should the US decide, today, that slavery is OK because the US was once (and profited handsomely from being) a nation that permitted slavery?

I think not.

You see, nobody has suggested that the US should do anything of the sort with regards to chemical weapons Andrew. You're twisting things a little here.

All that has been suggested is that if you are going to set yourself up as the world's moral compass you should make sure that your own moral compass points north first!

We, who are too powerful for anyone to be able to force us do anything, gave up and destroyed all of our chemical weapons back in the 1990s early 2000s.* We have not used chemical weapons ourselves since WW I (unless you quibble and call defoliants chemical weapons or napalm which is just like the flamethrowers which were permitted in WW II).

In this area our moral compass does point north.

yrs,
rubato

* My thesis advisor was a consultant in the project dating from ca 1991, JF Bunnett. And publised a book after a conference on the subject several years later on.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ed076p1346

[Big RR]

On the issue of the use of chemical weapons against civilians, the world's moral compass has been set by the overwhelming (and even that is too weak word) majority of the world.

And if that " overwhelming (and even that is too weak word) majority of the world" were supporting the sort of response you propose, I would agree. That they do not belies your argument.

Edited to add

Should the US decide, today, that slavery is OK because the US was once (and profited handsomely from being) a nation that permitted slavery?

Since we abolished slavery more than 150 years ago, I think we can distance ourselves from embracing it; but if we endorsed slavery only a couple of decades ago (like we did with providing those same weapons to, and endorsing their use by, another ME leader against his own people), then it would undercut our ability to claim a moral imperative to act. Face it, would you say the RC church has the same ability to condemn sexual abuse of children as, say, an institution with no history of the same, or possibly a joint action of many religious institutions condemning it?

I wouldn't.

[oldr_n_wsr]

An international covenant is a contract.

Did Syria sign that contract? Last I heard they did not.

[Big RR]

rubato--we destroyed all our chemical weapons; a simple google search revealed we still have plenty stockpiled which we plan to eventually destroy; See, e.g., http://publicintelligence.net/us-chem-weapons/

[Gob]

What I am saying is that the US should be willing to use its overwhelming (again, too weak a word) power to enforce what the world has already decided.

But, as we have seen, this situation has been ameliorated without the; "lets lob bombs at a country from a distance" solution which seems to be the US's idea of how to sort out problems.

So your chest beating, Team America World Police, are, as ever, not needed.