Hat tip to Professor Paul Rogers for directing attention to this short, detailed assessment of the options on Syria's chemical weapons in mid-December 2012:http://www.natowatch.org/node/835 and the original WINEP paper from July 2012:http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/p...litary-options

Citing an ex-DoD intell analyst:
There are a whole bunch of really bad options here....Sitting back and pushing him not to use them, I think, is the best.
Paul Rogers column ends with:
...more likely that if any action were to be taken against Syrian chemical weapons, Israel would take the decisive action. The Israelis' concern to protect their security, including a determination to prevent radical Islamist groups acquiring weapons of mass destruction, make their position clearer than the US's..... Moreover, Israel's security commitment is so fundamental that it would almost certainly have a lower threshold of “collateral damage” for Syrian civilians than the US.
Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-ro...ns-vs-politics