Why hasn’t President Obama intervened militarily in Syria? After all, this is a president who issued a directive last year stating that a “core” national security interest of the United States would be to prevent mass atrocities of precisely the kind Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is now unleashing on his own people. And this is a president who, to his credit, helped remove Muammar Qaddafi from power. Certainly, overthrowing Assad, cutting Syria’s ties to Iran, and putting an end to its destructive role in Lebanon is far more important to American security interests than the campaign to end Qaddafi’s rule in Libya ever was.

The quick and dirty answer is the November election. Having removed all U.S. forces from Iraq and drawing down in Afghanistan as rapidly as possible, this commander in chief is not looking for another Middle East war to fight.