There’s a whole lot of head-scratching going on right now following US President Obama’s abrupt, some might say erratic, about-turn after discovery of the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Some analysts allege cold feet, others suggest that Obama allows his craving for personal popularity to dictate his politics, while still others field various conspiracy theories ranging from the barely plausible to the downright bizarre.
What we can say with a degree of certainty, however, is that the focus of media attention is wrong. Yes, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad is a brutal dictator. Yes, Assad’s military has been battling Syrian citizens for many months now, and yes, that battle has been joined by various extremist Jihadi organisations whose brutality and agenda make Assad’s abuses pale into insignificance.
Read the entire article in the Times of Israel, where it was published as an op-ed on Tuesday 3 September 2013.