While we interpret that article differently, and while we may disagree just how equally-horrific air-strikes can be (missing limbs, hearing and sight is common for survivors) let's re-focus on this:
with Assad's forces winning, and Assad's stock rising, with the war almost won, he then orders his miltary (who are but men) to deliberately "cause horrific suffering for people over a wide area of effect" to their fellow countrymen, knowing full-well there'll be a Western reaction, further delaying an end to the war.
Is he pathologically insane? Pure evil? Are his men 'just following orders'?
I think the cult of Hitler (i.e. 'the ultimate evil') has given Western propaganda much licence to create monsters.
Basically, I'm not seeing the straight line of logic you're seeing, tubes...
if I was the decision maker my goal would be to merely prevent further innocent deaths and the way to that seems to be to take the West out (including arms trading). Result: Assad resumes control: the rebels/mercenaries now without funding splinter off and do their thing elsewhere.
If i understand you correctly: you would prefer the West to react with strikes, which would not only kill more innocents but also prolong the war, costing yet more lives. Your justification for this is that you believe Assad will otherewise commit genocide against his own people.
Is that right? Have you ever watched any Assad interviews?
Assad has already proven he'll do anything to retain power. He is a de facto dictator at this point; deeply insecure, striking out at anything and everything he perceives as a threat. His reliance on Russia is profound, as is his paranoia, as seen at the start of the Arab Spring revolt where he called his own people calling for him to go 'terrorists' and 'not Syrians', provoking a civil war instead of negotiating, let alone stepping aside.
Yes, I think he is a monster. Not because it's easy to do so, but because of his actions. I think he's called for chemical attacks time and time again on his own people to strike fear into their hearts. People like to point to how he was early in his reign when he wasn't under threat (as have you by pointing to his interviews), yet that simply doesn't matter given how we now
know he's acted once he perceived one. Bill Cosby doesn't scream "date rape drug rapist" on The Cosby Show, does he?
Your solution means abandoning thousands upon thousands of people to the whims of a dictator to mass execute his own people. Your solution also fails to suggest that
Russia leave Assad to his own devices, which I'd like to remind you that they were asked to do and did not several years ago (indeed, they intervened to prop up Assad when he was on the verge of losing, extending the civil war.)
I don't buy that solution myself. I don't believe ignoring something and hoping it goes away is a valid strategy. A victorious Assad, backed by an invigorated Russia, will be an authoritarian regime that will kill and kill again inside his own country to stifle internal threat (they have absolutely no reason not to; the more political opponents they get fleeing to Europe as refugees, the better), with a victory achieved by laughing in the face of international conventions on weaponry and human rights abuses.
However, I also understand that we may be powerless to stop it at this point. Indeed, I'm not convinced a 'Syrian War' with boots on the ground is a good idea at all. But that's why I want strikes, and you aren't understanding why. I want them targeted against their chemical weapon delivery systems. That should be the plan, because you still have to send the message that what happened over the last few days is not to be tolerated, for the long term good of the world if nothing else. You can't just have words, because they mean nothing if they're ignored.
Sometimes there are no good options; there are merely less bad options. I think that's what we have here - Russia and Syria may well win, but they shouldn't win without a slap down on the matter of chemical weaponry. We've already let Russia walk in and take Crimea unchallenged; we shouldn't be letting them have win after win a la Hitler with Czechoslovakia. Because that's what Putin has been doing - pushing and prodding, seeing how much he can get away with, seeing how weak the western resolve is. And, unfortunately, it's weak.
