President Obama has repeatedly said the U.S. will not get directly involved in Syria, refusing even to provide arms to the rebels, unless Bashar Assad crosses the “red line” of using chemical weapons. It was never explicitly said what the U.S. would do in that contingency, giving rise to the suspicion that the answer is “not much.”

Well, now Israel has called Obama’s bluff. A senior Israeli intelligence officer, Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, has said publicly what has previously only been rumored: “The regime has increasingly used chemical weapons.” Specifically, Israeli intelligence believes, as the New York Times notes, that a March 19 attack “involved the use of sarin gas, the same agent used in a 1995 attack in the Tokyo subway that killed 13,” and that the “attacks killed ‘a couple of dozens’…in what Israel judged as ‘a test’ by President Bashar al-Assad of the international community’s response.”

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Administration insiders appear to be acknowledging the obvious, if not quoted for attribution: namely, that the Syrian insurgency is full of extremists and that, if the insurgency were to prevail now, the result could a government not to our liking. But the result of this realistic analysis is an unrealistic course of action. The Wall Street Journal reports that:

the U.S. has sought a controlled increase in support to moderate rebel factions. President Barack Obama is expected as early as this week to authorize the provision of nonlethal military aid such as body armor and night-vision goggles to moderate fighters, though officials said Mr. Obama still opposes sending American arms and taking unilateral military action.

The administration goal, according to people briefed on the effort, is to provide enough aid to strengthen U.S.-vetted fighters without tipping the balance so far that Islamists who dominate rebel ranks will be able to overrun the regime and its institutions.

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President Obama’s crippling passivity in dealing with the Syrian civil war seems to be explained, at least in part, by a widespread expectation in and out of the administration that Bashar Assad is finished no matter what the U.S. does or doesn’t do–that it’s “only a matter of time” before he is toppled.

I still think that is the most likely outcome, but it is worrisome to see that Assad’s forces have succeeded in breaking the rebel siege of two of his northern military bases in a part of the country that has been largely seized by the insurgents. The New York Times quotes a resident of the northern town of Idlib: “To be honest, after seeing the army’s operation today, there is a widespread fear among people that regime forces will soon regain control of other areas in the province.”

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