WarSclerotic

Will Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, the head of the Research Division at IDF Military Intelligence, be the person who ultimately forces Washington to take action in Syria? It’s far from certain, but the world, following Brun’s assessment that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons, has now fixed its gaze toward the Obama administration and how it chooses to respond.

Last August, the administration declared that the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would be crossing a red line. U.S. President Barack Obama committed America to action, if and when such a thing would transpire. After Brun’s statements, it took the Americans 48 hours, by way of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, to confirm that Syria had indeed used chemical weapons against opposition forces. Obama suddenly needs to seriously weigh his least favored option: military action in Syria.

Martin Indyk, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, is not one of Obama’s traditional naysayers; quite the opposite. In an interview in The New York Times on Thursday, Indyk conceded that “The president’s red line appears to have been crossed.”

The Obama administration, according to Indyk, needs to consider how to proceed. Doing nothing would be a message to the region, specifically to the Iranians, though the blow to American deterrence regarding the future use of chemical weapons in Syria would be just as damaged. Brig. Gen. Brun, perhaps without intending to, has put Obama to the test.

The U.S. president doesn’t like war. He wants to be remembered as the person who brought the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, not the person who sent them to the front line. Since the beginning of the Arab uprising in the spring of 2011, Obama has been consistent: In Egypt he embraced the Muslim Brotherhood government, in Libya he was dragged along by Britain and France instead of leading the campaign to topple the Gadhafi regime, and in Syria he is currently playing the role of an extra. However, one can understand his caution — Syria is not Egypt, Tunisia, Libya or Yemen. The day after Assad is just as scary as his current regime.

Regardless, the Syrian regime crossed the line a long time ago already. The ongoing massacre of Syrian civilians is intolerable in a world where the horrors taking place there can be seen at any given time via a smartphone. Not to mention the use of chemical weapons, which even Britain and France have already told us where and when they were deployed.

While Hagel did admit Thursday that chemical weapons were used, he added that they were used “on a small scale,” and in Washington officials went even further, saying more conclusive evidence was needed. In the meantime, Iranian, Syrian and even in North Korean officials are closely following the Obama administration’s next step. Washington must realize that ignoring the red line is akin to waving a red flag.