Updated: Wickham: Why Obama should not attack Syria

As horrific as the death count is from the sarin-filled bombs that the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad allegedly hurled into a rebel stronghold on the edge of Damascus, it should not trigger a U.S. military intervention into Syria's two-and-a-half-year-old civil war.

Yes, the 426 children killed by the use of a weapon of mass destruction -- which most of the world agrees is an unacceptable means of meting out death -- is a chilling reminder of the indiscriminate brutality of war. But in a conflict in which both sides are accused of committing gruesome war crimes, President Obama should not let himself be bamboozled into plunging this nation down another Middle East rabbit hole.

He shouldn't be hoodwinked into believing that a U.S. military action to "punish" Assad's forces is in this country's national interest. Some of the strongest factions aligned against Assad's regime have links to al-Qaeda, which is waging a worldwide terrorist campaign against us.

If the forces trying to topple Assad prevail, Syria could become the world's first al-Qaeda-led nation -- an outcome that would almost certainly draw large numbers of U.S. ground forces back onto a Middle East battle zone. Avoiding that outcome is in this country's national interest. Keep reading

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