Not surprised that WS is busy hyping a version of events that takes the Administration’s position out of context and relies on positions that were stated a year ago - and before any kind of evidence began appearing that the Syrians were using chemical agents. The Administration’s current position is far more nuanced than what the WS portrays.

In fact, here’s what he had so say when he was in Jordan a few weeks ago:

But the main topic on today’s agenda was the ongoing crisis in Syria, including the impact it is having on Jordan, which has seen more than half a million refugees cross their border to escape the violence in their own country. The President addressed the reports that chemical weapons may have been used on the citizens of Syria and promised that the U.S and our partners in the region would pursue a “very rigorous investigation” of the evidence:

We have to act prudently. We have to make these assessments deliberately. But I think all of us, not just in the United States but around the world, recognize how we cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian populations.

So this is going to be something that we’ll be paying a lot of attention to — trying to confirm, and mobilize the international community around those issues.

For the US to get involved in a shooting war or even a no-fly zone action against Syria, there’s got to be some legal basis. The rationales can include some of those that were used in the Iraq war - human rights violations, sanctions failing, but the Syrians aren’t facing a no-fly zone already in place, the Syrians haven’t fired on US forces, etc.

Now, could the US act upon violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention. I’m not so sure. Syria’s not a signatory to the CWC, and while it has a framework for dealing with violations among signatories, it doesn’t address what to do when a nonsignatory violates.

A much stronger argument can be made for the Genocide Convention though here too we’re dealing not with a genocide - attacks based on race, religion, or creed, but democide - where the regime is killing all those who oppose to the regime. Arguably, there’s crossover here - those supporting the regime are largely Alawites, while the opposition is most every other religious and ethnic group across the country.