From Arab Spring to Middle East Winter: The Death of Hope

So is this is what we are getting into? Assad's totalitarian killer regime in Syria, supported by Shi’ite Muslims, Iran, and Hezbollah (headquartered in Lebanon, on Israel’s border) VS “the Rebels,” mostly Sunni Muslims, al Qaeda-linked terrorist groups, Chechnyan Islamic Militants (really), and other foreign jihadists.

What a mess. A seething cauldron of hate, ethnic tensions, extreme religious intolerance, mass murder, terrorists, and basically the whole sorry history of Israel vs. the Arab World and the Middle East from the post-World War II era, through the tumultuous 1960s-80s, through Saddam, Osama bin Laden and 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the painful present. Never-ending violence.  

This is such a total logistical nightmare, resources trap, and potential cosmic explosion it boggles the mind. 

What can US involvement in the three-year Syrian civil war accomplish?  Help Israel subdue the ongoing threat of Hezbollah? Force Iran to back off, take off, or compromise? Arm militant Muslims and jihadists against Assad, who will then put down their weapons and embrace the West?    

Rebels in Syria.  Demanding we send
heavy weapons? Yahoo image. 

Are those the GOALS of our intervention? Spell it out, please. Tell us the truth. The polls are already out: we the American people are against this path.

We saw what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Nothing.  Nothing but  destruction, death, duplicity, and ongoing violence. 

We know or strongly suspect that intervention in Syria will escalate, one step leading to another, one "line in the sand" crossed after another. First the use of chemicals, then what? The threat of Iran's nuclear weapons?  Hezbollah's firing missles on Israel?  

We know that such intervention in the Syrian civil war will suck up billions of dollars, thousands of lives, every resource known to modern warfare, our enormous espionage capabilities (yes, we know about NSA and high-tech spying), and every part of the human spirit.    

We fear being in Syria will be like a monster tsunami roaring across the Middle East, whipping up more debris, more hatred, destroying everything in its path, washing viciously across the historic conflicted landscape.  And it will solve nothing.  It might bring a global world war.  

Why are we getting involved in the Syrian civil war? Where will it lead?