President Obama's Speech to the Nation is Ambitious

President Obama addresses the nation over Syria and his case for an attack on Assad

Observations: Just finished watching President Barrack Hussein Obama's address to the nation over the chemical attack in Syria and his case for a US military response. It is impossible to measure the effectiveness of the president's speech at this point, but his arguments are just a compilation of what his administration had been saying across the world by US sec. of state Johny Kerry. While the "Intel" he outlined showed Assad used the chemical weapons, he, in my opinion, failed to convince this war-wearied nation that going to war with Assad is a good idea. He said he doesn't want to drag US into another war, and said that his plan is to not to topple Assad but to attack and degrade his military power, and then promised not to put on the ground as if boots on the ground is the definition of war. And while he promised a limited strike against Assad military might and chemical stockpiles, he failed to convinced America that doing so would lead only to a weakened regime. The law of unintended consequences is associated with wars regardless of where war is waged. For instance, in Iraq, the US and its coalition rolled into Baghdad thinking that ousting a dictator would bring in democracy and then the US would leave. The war turned out to be one of the most bloodied and longest wars in US history. The sudden uprising of Iraqis loyal to Muslim Clerics and the surge in insurgency from Al Qeada cells around the region were amongst some of the "unintended consequences" many US military planners never saw coming. In the speech, President Obama also made mention of helping Israel, Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia defend themselves from possible repercussions. And one can ask, 'from who?" if the Syrians are degraded, who are these countries going to fear? Iran? Wouldn't that open up a new war beside the Syrian war? I am sure that these countries would hit back at Iran and possible Israel would take the opportunity to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, how is that a solution to the Syrian conflict? Again, the Obama administration cannot come up with one analysis of a post Syrian war because it is hard to measure. 
It is impossible to assess just how successful a US attack on Syria would be since US intel relies on second and third party sources. Most of the intel provided to US come from Israeli sources (possibly Mossad) and international organizations operating in Syria, and some from the opposition camp. And the analysis of the composition of Rebel fighters, which the US administration used in trying to convince congress, came not from the CIA but from a study carried out by a woman, Elizabeth O'Bagy of a journalist from Wall Street Journal (WSJ), who did a research on the situation in Syria. Her report claimed that Al Qaeda made up a minority of the Rebel fighters only concentrated on the Northern side, but reports on the ground of Jihadists operation on the front-line bring doubt to that report. Right now, President Obama is announcing a pause on US military preparations while Russia takes the proposal of removing Chemical weapons away from Syria to ally Syria. If that fails, US attack may come sooner than later. GOD HAVE MERCY!