While Obama is trying to convince the American citizens that a military intervention in Syria will serve US national security interests, the whole world is staring confused about how targeted air strikes will solve Syria's problems after 2 years of conflict that has already left 100000 corpses. Although, conclusions by the Obama administration, containing accusations of the Syrian regime using chemical weapons against civilians, were made before any official result from UN weapons inspectors comes out, one thing is taken for granted that punishing Bashar al-Assad's regime will be the next military priority for the USA. According to Reuters, the british MPs voted no in the non-binding vote of Thursday evening, concerning the responsibility of the Syrian regime for the use of chemical weapons and authorizing the use of force, despite the intelligence evidence that Prime Minster Cameron provided. Francois Hollande after his meeting with the Syrian opposition seemed open to a solution agreed by the international community "Everything must be done for a political solution, but that will only be achieved if the international community is able to put a halt to the escalation of violence that this chemical killing is only an illustration". It is still unclear if Syria's traditional allies like Russia and China will veto a possible UN resolution in case of a strong evidence of use of chemical weapons by the regime.

Syria has been for the last months the battlefield for various armed groups. A sectarian dynamic composed on one side by Sunis rebels that operate under the umbrella of Free Syrian Army fighting along Sunis salafists and Al-Qaeda elements and from the other side the Alawite regime, Iraqi and Irani Shias militias and Hezbollah has been destabilizing the region. 

But was the decision to arm a fragmented opposition wise? The Friends of Syria group (the US, Britain, France and Germany as well as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan) met in Doha on June 22 and in its joint statement agreed to "provide urgently all the necessary [military] materiel and equipment to the opposition on the ground", through the rebels' Higher Military Council. The US Secretary of State John Kerry insisted that the decision was taken in order to give the rebels more power in negotiating an end to the conflict. The truth is that over the past two years both the Syrian government and the opposition are being supplied with weaponry. Government forces have obviously been better armed whereas Russia and Iran have also been providing military support throughout the conflict. On the other side, Syrian rebel groups have been supplied weapons by various sources, among them Qatar and Saudi Arabia. These facts have not really been a game-changer and could not move the balance or force negotiations, for which the lack of international consensus for the conflict resolution, is blamed in great part. There is only one sad outcome a massive death toll and a huge refugees crisis.

There is already a lot of criticism about the upcoming US military intervention. The intervention is supposed to consist in targeted air attacks in order to give a strong message to Assad. There has been a comparison with Kosovo war and the air strikes against Serbian forces but this time the situation is different. Syrian tanks and artillery are in cities such as Damascus and Homs, and those cannot be destroyed from air without the risk of hitting civilian apartments. In addition, according to Juan Cole of the university of Michigan: "Syria has chemical weapons in unknown location, bombing raids on Syrian military facilities can release these chemicals." Consequently, there is no guarantee that this intervention will be efficient and will not expand, turning to a ground involvement whereas the result cannot be foreseen like it happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Is the US President's credibility really in danger, if he does not authorize this intervention after saying that chemical weapons' use is a red line, or are there more important matters to consider? The recently declassified, and published by Foreign Policy, CIA documents showed that US had strong evidence about the Iraqi chemical attacks in 1983, during Iran-Iraq war, but surprisingly Iran never made it to UN lacking that evidence in order to build a case and the US took no action against those chemical attacks. Obviously, there is more than just punishing a violation of Geneva Protocol behind this intervention, and that is called interests. Moreover, if an international consensus for action against Assad is not achieved, the reaction of other actors cannot be estimated. Iran has a strategic partnership with Syria and it is not crystal clear if it will continue to provide arms to the regime. The Former iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, has referred to Syria as "a golden ring of resistance against Israel", while high-level iranian officials said that Syria is Iran’s "35th province and if we lose Syria we won’t be able to hold Tehran". Moscow's reaction can also be unpredictable. In a weekend call between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Lavrov reportedly warned that a U.S. strike on Syria would have "extremely dangerous consequences". According to expert on Russia, Petr Topychkanov, if US ignores UNSC and decides for intervention on its own, Russia will continue to provide military aid to Assad nevertheless if evidence proves chemical weapons' use it will not. China also opposes a military intervention on these terms, defending the principle of nonintervention.

This will not be the first time that a conflict in the Middle East creates such a tension between USA and Russia and their traditional allies respectively. But USA will have to think about a list of scenarios before taking action. Targeted air strikes could only be the beginning and intervention can be prolonged as long as more weaponry is provided to both sides, as long as the Assad regime resists and tribes try desperately to survive at the same time as the shadow of a sectarian war in the region of Middle East gets darker. Obama administration also needs to put things in a perspective and not intervene without a wider strategy about what he really wants to accomplish: simply punish Assad, weaken the regime and force it to negotiations or provoke Assad's fall to support finally a government that preserves its vital interests and all of the above of course without Syria falling into more chaos.