In December, the Obama administration acted on intelligence showing that Bashar al-Assad was preparing to use chemical weapons against his own people. Obama publicly warned the Syrian president and, according to the New York Times, “private messages sent to Assad and his military commanders through Russia and others… stopped the chemical mixing and the bomb preparation.” As one senior defense official told the Times, “I think the Russians understood this is the one thing that could get us to intervene in the war.”

It seems that the administration has become so accustomed to broadcasting its real or imagined triumphs through the paper of record that it is numb to how the rest of the world might perceive the White House’s carefully crafted self-image. The administration applauds itself for saving Syrians from death by chemical weapons, but only underscores the fact that, despite its many excuses and equivocations, it is indeed capable of stopping the slaughter. Instead Obama has opted to stand by idly while Assad, using conventional arms, has collected 60,000 corpses.