i often read diaries on this site talking about how obama is playing 11-dimensional chess or something, usually in reference to his taking positions with which liberals disagree. and today, with news that syria might be giving up its chemical weapons, there is renewed talk that the outcome was his plan all along, and that's how the high-dimension chess game is played.
but really, all obama did was play checkers.
what do we know? the US claims it has credible evidence that syria used sarin gas on its own people. the only effective deterrent we have is that we will attack any country or faction that uses chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. so it only makes sense that if we think syria used gas, that we should threaten to attack them.
we don't know for sure whether gas was used, and even if it was, we don't know for sure the gas was used by assad's forces (and we even don't know whethher assad ordered or knew about it).
but we do know that leaders under a credible fear of attack behave very differently from people who believe they can act with impunity. what was it that teddy roosevelt said about sticks?
obama made it very clear to assad that we are ready to lob missiles at him for using sarin gas. no one should be surprised that his most rational course of conduct was to find a way to keep those missiles from launching.