Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
I for one am not certain Assad's forces employed chemical weapons and remain apprehensive we're being played by the more extremist elements of the opposition. Having seen our intelligence community fail repeatedly based on bias sources, and seeing what they want to see, plus our adversaries are more than capable of running their own deception operations. Also think it is possible that Iranian surrogates (Assad's allies) may have done it without Assad's permission for some reason that Iran thinks will support their interests. However the Assad may well have directed it, but why?
Possible reasoning, if indeed Assad did initiate it:

The US doesn't want to intervene, but (unwisely IMO) committed itself to action if a "red line" is violated". Always worth making the other guy do what he doesn't want to do.

A US strike will be limited: essentially the purpose of the strike is not to have an impact on Syria, but to show that the administration backed up its "red line". The strike will thus be survivable.

A limited strike will gain the Assad regime the Muslim world street cred of being the ones fighting the Bad Americans without subjecting them to excessive risk. It also puts his antagonists in the uncomfortable position of being allied to the Bad Americans.

A US strike would give the Iranians an excuse to intervene more openly.

Not saying that's what happened (like the rest of us, I don't know what happened), only that there could be some internal logic to an Assad-sponsored chemical strike.