Four Myths About Obama's Foreign Policy

Of all the reasons for the international community’s skittishness about ending the regime of Bashar Al Assad, perhaps the biggest is the fear of a fanatical, Al Qaeda–linked government rising in its place. Voices as ideologically disparate as Russia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov, former Representative Dennis Kucinich, and Senator Ted Cruz have raised this concern. (Cruz and Kucinich have both said that, with a military strike, the United States would be acting as “Al Qaeda’s air force.”)