Dear NATO leaders,

Stay out of Syria.

Please.

Yes, it's terrible that Assad is using chemweps against his own people.

However, it appears that it isn't just a weapon being used by the Government forces.

That being the case, and also being that the forces Assad is fighting just happen to be backed (evidently) by Iran, this is a no-win situation for the west.

A few cruise missiles or bombs will do exactly nothing to the tactical situation on the ground, and will, in fact, deteriorate the position of the United States and the rest of NATO politically. The bombs/missiles will be portrayed as hitting innocent civilians (regardless of who they actually hit), and will prove that NATO is a toothless tiger.

Irritate NATO, and you just have to hide your command and control assets for a while while NATO rains a few missiles down on your populace to demonstrate that they're irritated and paying attention. Nothing of any actual importance will follow, so go ahead and poke them in the eye all you want. Even better, you might get significant backing out of your intransigence, as Russia will take advantage of your actions and use NATO's limp reaction to gain political points in the great game.

CNN will cover the missile strikes, the armchair generals and admirals will sit and comment on what a wonderful job the troops did, and everyone will move on to the next distraction, be it Miley Cyrus or Kim Kardashian. The net effect on the ground will be nothing, but the ravening beast (the media) will have been fed and move on.

Again, NATO, stay out. Stop talking about red lines. You let them cross the last 3 "red lines" laid out by Pres. Obama, what's one more? You've already proven your threats are toothless.

If the chemweps cross borders, then get involved. Until then, however, you're firing missiles to no good end other than an immediate "feel good" news story that we did something, when the reality would be that we accomplished nothing in the near term, and eroded our political and military positions in the long term.