The main goal of any action in Syria as far as The West is concerned is to get rid of Chemical Weapons. I agree with this goal, and international agreements agree with this goal, but is it doable without a war? You betcha!
I believe repeated attempts in the UN security council that make the Russian position more and more bizarrely embarrassing has a chance. They may even join some efforts (see below. War never goes according to plan, and diplomatic efforts must minimize the numbers of friends of our enemies. So far we have done the opposite.)
Why even go for authorizing the use of force first? That's silly!
For example, Syria is only one of 5 countries, with North Korea, Egypt, Angola and South Sudan, that neither signed nor acceded to the chemical weapons elimination act. America, China and Russia have. UN secretary Ban declared that the UN goal should be to eliminate chemical weapons in 5 years all over the world.
Why don't we try to pass an immediate chemical weapons elimination act in the security council? This could be supervised by the permanent members (US, Russia, China, France, UK) and concluded, say, within 3 months in countries where the weapons have been used, and 5 years where they haven't regardless of who used them.
Iran, Assad's primary supporter, is signatory to the chemical weapons elimination ban. This gives us 5 years to check on them too.
If Russia and China veto this, we may next suggest a blockade of Syria that prevents any delivery systems and chemicals of any kind, inspected by a joint force of the permanent members. I believe Russia will veto this as well because they make money from selling `regular' weapons to Assad, but maybe not.
What have we got to lose? War is hell.
Our coalition will grow stronger and our actions may be justified in history as a `non-Chamberlain moment' if after all that, and other efforts, Russia and China keep on vetoing.
If Russia and China support and participate, the `boots on the ground' would be an international force that could calm things down greatly in the Syrian civil war, and the Arab Spring, making some enclaves permanently separated (and do we really care if Syria keeps its integrity under the Baa'th regime? I don't! All those countries were anyways created by Colonial powers that wanted to divide and rule.)
Only last year Syria admitted only recently that they possessed chemical weapons.
America's best stretches of respectability in the world were in WWII, Korea, and to some extent in Gulf War 1. Russia did not oppose the Korean and Gulf War I wars in the UN!
We assembled true coalitions to fight rogues then - but we lied to ourselves and others in Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, and now Syria. That approach led to both global weakness and economic weakness.
WE NEED TO MAKE THIS A MORAL HIGH GROUND BEFORE WE GO TO WAR, IF WE HAVE TO. RIGHT NOW, THE US GOVERNMENT HAS MADE ONLY HALF-ASSED EFFORTS TO GET THE WORLD TOGETHER BEHIND US, WITH THE IMPLICIT ASSUMPTION THAT RELATIVE TO THE BUSH REGIME WE ARE ANGELS. THE WORLD WILL N E V E R FORGET IF THIS BECAME A GREATER CONFLICT (AND IT MAY! TODAY CHINA SENT AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER).