How to Stop Iran's Takeover of Syria

It's been edifying to see how quickly the international press has discovered that Syrian air defense systems are not quite so "formidable" as they were once described by senior Pentagon officials. It apparently takes a heavily-subsidized American client state to demonstrate via mushroom clouds the flaws in American strategic thinking now that leading from behind has become a happy conceptual partner to being led by the nose by forty years of Ba'athist propaganda about Syria's military might. But then, the Israelis have openly mocked Washington's failure to uphold its own "red lines" and they never tire of reminding their American patrons that when it comes to human intelligence and dealing with state actors in the Middle East, the heavy lifting is really best left to them.