No one knows for sure who did it, or how it happened, but chemical weapons have likely been unleashed in Syria. The consensus so far, however, is that this is the work of the increasingly desperate regime. This puts the U.S. and other passive nations in a delicate position. If they decide that the Syrian regime used the weapons, they need to make good on their promise to intervene. In doing so, they risk the almost certain use of more chemical weapons. If they do not, they tell the world that (as with North Korea) there really is no red line. The only thing worse than dictator al-Assad using the weapons against his own people, is terrorists using those weapons against everyone else.
The Assad regime must be emboldened by the West's tolerance of Iran's shenanigans and North Korea's outright detonation of nuclear weapons and seemingly idle threats. How many skyscrapers must fall before the U.S. acts again? Last time, the magic number was two.
