Military strikes on Syria imminent, senior US officials say.

The U.S. could hit Syria with three days of missile strikes, perhaps beginning Thursday, in an attack meant more to send a message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad than to topple him or cripple his military, senior U.S. officials told NBC News on Tuesday.

Let me say right now that if the intent is to “send a message” that’s not sufficient reason to attack another country. What if the recipient says “Meh. Who cares?” Then you’re on the road to bigger messages, larger attacks, and potential blowback from the recipient and its allies, who include Hezbollah and Iran.

Do we really want to do this? Assad is a murderous bastard, we know that. Hell, his father was a murderous bastard. But somehow we survived his regime despite his killing somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 of his own people at Hama in 1982.

Gassing your own citizens is dreadful, there’s no denying that. But “sending a message” is probably not going to keep the younger Assad from doing it again. About the only thing that will stop it is removing his regime from power, and that’s not going to be done with cruise missiles from destroyers offshore. That probably means an expeditionary and occupation force, and we just finished doing that in Iraq and we’re trying to remove what’s left of the same kind of force from Afghanistan.

Not a good idea, Mr. President.

See also Kevin Drum.