Obama’s in this difficult fix, of course, only because he is in the unenviable position of being forced to enforce multilateralism unilaterally (except for the French, that is). He is trying to shore up the U.S.-led multilateral global system, one that was badly damaged by his predecessor’s unilateral thrust into Iraq and the global financial crisis that Wall Street precipitated on George W. Bush’s watch, and which is in a state of near-dissolution now. History suggests that without the leadership of a dominant power—in this case the U.S., because there is no one else—autarky reins. If “norms” for use of WMD use go, the global system of open trade and peaceful relations may follow.

Perhaps Obama’s greatest frustration was revealed in the comments he made about the irony of being seen as a warmonger. “I was elected to end wars, not start ’em,” Obama said. “I spent the last four and a half years to reduce our reliance on military power.” Indeed, before being confronted with Syria’s chemical weapons use, Obama had been leading an effort to effectively de-militarize American foreign policy. He stood against some of his senior advisors in avoiding any involvement in the Syrian civil war, despite cries for humanitarian intervention. In a major speech in May at the National Defense University, the president even indicated that he was downgrading anti-terrorism from a war to a police enforcement action. It’s time to narrow and de-emphasize the global war against al-Qaida, Obama said, the better to focus on “nation-building at home,” his favorite theme. American deployments will go back to the meager presence we had pre-9/11, because, Obama said, “the future of terrorism” will be a smaller-scale “threat that closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11.”