Decapitate

Obama wants to make a punitive strike on Syria.  Stupid.  Syria didn't order its citizens gassed, Assad did. Obama wants it to be surgical and limited -- not to punish, after all, but in hope of sustaining what little credibility we still have with allies.  We have to strike because we said we would.  Perhaps Obama deserves a punishment for having made dumb red-line boasts. He used the phrase "shot across the bow."  A shot across the bow goes harmlessly into the sea.  No, misspoke: he means, some real hurt -- but of limited duration and extent. Like being half-pregnant? And any collateral damage will only strengthen Assad's moralistic outrage.  All a limited strike will do is underscore how limited are our options and how wary we are of taking risk. A pin-prick would not slow this or other Assad wanna-bes.

McCain wants a major military thrust to change the regime.  Equally stupid.  We ally ourselves with whom? Al-Qaeda?  We enter into a dirty civil war with extremists on every side, become enmeshed in another toxic swamp of Middle-East rivalries we don't begin to understand, spill blood and spend borrowed money in fruitless quest of regional stability.

The only strike that fits the crime (and Obama's need to be taken seriously) is decapitation.  When a tyrant gasses his own population, he should lose his head. Obama must have plenty of spooks -- ours or Israel's or Jordan's or somebody's who have a plan to accomplish it.  Unleash them.  If no plan is feasible with a high probability of success, fold our tent and withdraw from the Middle East.  We don't belong there, anyway.

Decapitation.  Illegal? Yes.  Immoral?  Less so than punitive strike or attempted regime change that would wound and kill innocent by-standers.  Playing God again?  We've already transgressed there.  Decapitate and don't look back.