Yep, the British Parliament just (narrowly) voted against military action in Syria.
Saying it "narrowly" voted against, while true, doesn't quite cover the political realities. It's like a Democratic Congress (with a wide-enough margin to be "safe") voting against a Democratic president's laws. Sure it's happened, but it's a very, very painful signal. Cameron pretty much got punished for Blair's lies and manipulations.
About the chemical attacks...It's nice you're all saying it was Assad. it's also nice that some international NGOs are saying there's about a 50/50 chance it was either a rebel splinter group, or one of the bigger rebel groups, instead of the regime. Known fact is that both the government and, at the very least, the two most important rebel groups all posses several types of chemical weapons. Tests so far say it was probably saringas, which we know was in possession of the rebels but we don't have confirmed reports on being in the hands of the government (but who are we kidding? Of course they have it too! Probably bought in the same place!).
if the US wants European traction, the diplomatic focus needs to shift from "going in to help the rebels by [...]" to "going in to stop the fighting from all sides by [...]". A no-fly zone might help, just like it did in Lybia, but Syria's an even uglier conflict - and with less reason for most nations to get involved (except for Russia - and their reasons are even worse than usual!). Realistically, you'd need almost as many boots-on-the-ground in Syria as in Iraq - mostly because Iraq has been and continues to be chronically understaffed, and because the Syrian regime has far more modern military equipment than Iraq - even though it's only about 40% of the surface. It doesn't help that there's far more Syrians than Iraqi per square mile, and that Syria's much closer to a lot of important stuff, such as "Europe".
Anyway - drop a nuke on the whole lot, put down at least 50,000 troops and accept that they'll be there for 10 years or more, or don't go. Don't do the same thing as Afghanistan and Iraq - start things you can't or won't finish - and perhaps, just perhaps, try finding out why other countries aren't as eager to march in instead of going cavalier seul.
And drawn_inward...I knwo you're not the typical american and whatever, but the "Why is it always us who have to go and clean up everyone's mess?" comment is very much the type of line of thinking that ensures Americans are considered arrogant and self-centered bastards in pretty much every part of the world that isn't the West (and by most of the left wing of the West, too). There are plenty of huge armed conflicts going on in the world where the US is, at the very least, dragging its feet, and more often, pretending it doesn't exist or isn't as bad as all that. You are, of course, more aware of the wars/conflicts American media and/or politics have deemed important or terrible. This isn't strange, or weir,d or wrong, or whatever. It pays to be aware of it, though.
Eh, I'm being too "anti-American" and too ranty, I suppose, my apologies. Still. The fight in Syria is disastrous, and the situation, as per usual, has been left to rot so long that no matter what course of action is followed, we'll look back on it and say "why didn't we do something else?" in five years' time. heck, already.
