WaPo's Ignatius: "Option of a US-led military intervention in Syria is receding in the face of reality"

"... An advertisement of the limits of U.S. power was the tirade last week by U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice, who called the Russians “pitiful,” “dangerous” and “deplorable” ....  In this fulmination, she was emulating her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has described Russian actions as “despicable” and “intolerable.” This diplomacy-by-insult toward a country we are nominally seeking as a partner is counterproductive. Enough, already.The reality, whether the Russians like it or not, is that the Syrian opposition is stumbling its way toward the gates of Damascus. Major Syrian figures are defecting, and more are said to be on the way. Meanwhile, the United States and its allies are divvying up the pieces of an increasingly potent covert action program — with the Saudis and Qataris providing money and weapons, America providing communications and logistics (a.k.a. command and control) and the Turks, Jordanians, Israelis and Emiratis providing intelligence support on the ground.
Even as the opposition pushes Assad toward the door, officials should worry about what comes next. U.S. officials reckon that well over 100 al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters are active in Syria, and that the numbers are growing as the fighting intensifies. A jihadist state that provides a new foothold for al-Qaeda would be a disaster for the region. Preventing this outcome should unite every player — including Russia, the United States, Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran.
Some Americans still talk about a major U.S.-led military intervention, but this option is receding in the face of reality: Syria has an air defense system tighter than Pakistan’s, and a chemical-weapons arsenal that can be quickly dispersed to scores of locations. Getting military forces into Syria would be hard, but getting them out would be even harder.
As one U.S. official stresses, the intervention proposals don’t meet the first requirement of what he describes as “Strategy 101” — namely, that in uncertain situations, the potential benefits of intervention should far outweigh the potential costs...... "