President Obama speaking in Belfast Monday.
The White House last week said the U.S. will start arming certain Syrian opposition groups with light weapons, moving to intervene in that country’s bloody civil war.
The question now is how deeply America will become involved in the fighting.
The decision to supply arms is a cautious half-step for President Obama, who previously concentrated on ending the two wars begun by George W. Bush. Obama has only agreed to military entanglements when world opinion clearly leaned in favor of it. When he has done so–in Libya and Central Africa, for example–he’s largely succeeded in keeping the U.S. from being drawn further into the bloodshed.
But Syria is by far the largest war in which Obama has picked sides, and with U.S. stakes already high in the region, intervention carries far more risks than rewards.
Full dispatch here.