David maybe you can help decipher this Landis 'doublespeak'?

Q. He said (as you quoted):
The United States can play a role with aid, arms, and intelligence -- but it cannot and should not try to decide Syria's future and determine the victors of this conflict
A. There is an assumption by those advocating a direct, military intervention it is in short a "fix", Landis disagrees and this sentence meets the demands of the "do something" school, with a minimum level of support for the opposition. That alone will not be decisive.

Q. How does the Landis man produce a thought pattern where aiding, arming and providing intel to one side does not 'try to decide Syria's future'?

A. The USA, Landis's primary if not sole audience, all too often sees issues as starkly black and white. It believes - at the start - it can decide.