No. I've seen the recent videos. Sarin gas attacks on civilians. It needs a response.

[tkmorris]

38. Understandable, up to a point

But think it through. When you propose "disabling Assad's weaponry", what do you mean? The chemical weapons alone? If so it would require that we know precisely where they are, and can target them exclusively and nothing else. That's a tall order given that these weapons are quite easy to move around, and anywhere they are stored is likely to house other conventional arms as well.

Remember that the US' stated goal here is removal of Assad from power, while leaving the rest of his government intact. That is necessary because if a full scale overthrow of the govt occurs there would ensue a chaotic struggle amongst various groups to fill that vacuum. Most of these rebel groups are very much NOT the sort of people anyone would want ruling over Syria. More likely is that the civil war would continue, and the involvement of outside parties (Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc.) would increase. That would be an extremely unstable situation with the potential to spread the war beyond Syria's borders at any moment.

I am very skeptical that it is possible to effectively eliminate or even significantly reduce Assad's ability to use chemical weapons without effectively destroying his military's ability to wage conventional war against the rebel groups. In effect, anything useful we could do to ensure no further chemical weapons were used would as a side effect likely mean eventual victory for the rebels. It's a complicated scenario, requiring that we consider the long term affects of any potential actions.