Syria is a nightmare.
Assad is a brutal dictator who uses WMD on his own people. The insurgents are almost all extremist al qaeda supporters who want to set up a muslim theocracy of one degree or another. There is no good strategy here. Even staying completely out of it is bad because it weakens our hand in the region by making us look ineffective.
Obama recently said he's like to see Assad gone but the regime stay in control. Unfortunately even that would not bring an end to the civil war as the insurgents would keep fighting the regime.
Maybe we can take out all of the chemical weapons launch sites, but what next?