Because it’s likely to prevent an intervention where it really matters:
If we are going to bomb Syria, it will have to be the way we bombed Serbia, or worst case the way we invaded Iraq: with cheaper, lower grade holy water sprinkled by the less sacrosanct NATO priests on the bombs as in Serbia, or with just some Potomac water hastily and unconvincingly sprinkled by Pentagon chaplains on the bombs as in Iraq.
But for the foreseeable future, as long as he is reasonably discreet and possibly even if he isn’t, President Assad can murder as many of his subjects as he wants with no fear that the UN will do anything about it. We stopped a relatively small scale massacre in a country that posed little threat to our interests (and from which we were getting some excellent intelligence cooperation I am told) at the cost of enabling what looks ultimately like a much larger bloodbath in a country where our vital interests are much more engaged, and whose government actively supports some of our most dangerous enemies in the region.
As Glenn often says, a replay of the Carter administration is a best-case scenario.
“I don’t care! Obama is awesome!”
I doubt Syria would be currently in danger, even without Libya as distraction. Syria has better diplomatic agreements than Libya did, never was a French colony, and the government is much more in control.
Syria … never was a French colony
Syria was under French rule 1920-1946. Libya, on the other hand, wasn’t a French colony (it was an Italian colony).
As much as I dislike Syria, I don’t think we need another war right now.
The CIA instigating some payback for what they did to us in Iraq would be acceptable though.
Given the culture in the ME, whatever government comes next is likely not to be especially friendly.
There are all kinds of wars. Our enemies know this better than we do. This is why our friends say America does the right thing after exhausting all other possibilities.