I am not inclined to cast a charitable interpretation of the president’s actions surrounding Syria, but when events and your own intelligence agencies conspire to lead you into a war you do not want, there are a few ways to fight back. One is to pass the buck to Congress and let them kill the idea. Another is to get the support of Congress to start a war and then use that leverage to force a non-military solution. Still another is to get Congress to pass a different authorization providing leverage not for military force but for a non-military solution. Any of these three possible solutions are preferable to what people expected the president to do, which was to launch unilateral strikes almost immediately without asking for anyone’s permission.
I honestly don’t know what exactly is going on. But I do know that those three alternatives to punitive strikes are still on the table. For the president, the latter two must look better than the first one. But maybe he sincerely wants to make a futile and pointless and dangerous gesture by sending cruise missiles at Assad. That’s what he says he wants to do, anyway, even if it makes no sense to anyone but John Kerry.