Is the Carnage in Syria Obama's Fault?

The argument in favor of early intervention in Syria takes something for granted that is far from clear: that such an early intervention would have gone smoothly, or relatively smoothly. It may well not have. It is easy to design an intervention scenario on a newspaper opinion page, where none of the details have to be explained beyond the 1,000-word article limit. It is another thing to actually have to plan and carry out such an intervention, even if it does not involve the insertion of troops. Advice was legion on the op-ed pages about intervention in Libya. Libya is now a failed state. And Libya was simple compared to Syria. To say that intervention in Syria in 2011 would have been easier than in 2014 is to miss the point: Even intervention in 2011 would have been fraught with great risks.