How the U.S. Can Lead on Syria

Syria continues to go from bad to worse to terrible. The United States continues to follow events, not lead them. U.S. officials worry that greater violence, if not chaos, will follow the fall of Bashar al-Assad. They may be right, given the regime’s decades of misrule. But time matters.

The longer Assad clings to power, the worse the post-Assad period is likely to be; the longer violence will continue (and the more sectarian the struggle will become), the more Syrians will die, the more refugees will be created and the greater the opportunity for al-Qaeda to establish a terrorist beachhead in Syria.