“There are (Arab) media who say the U.S. should do something and basically Obama is being a chicken shit about it,” said Lawrence Pintak, a former Middle East correspondent for CBS News and founding dean of The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. “The main talking point is that al-Assad needs to be stopped, this is a humanitarian crisis the U.S. needs to move. The second set is that Obama is showing a level of cowardice in turning to Congress for political cover, that it undermines American effectiveness.”…

Michael Young, the opinion editor of the moderate English-language Lebanese newspaper the Daily Star, offered his view that Obama’s legacy is at risk as Syrians are “killed in droves.”

“America has rarely seemed so indolent in the face of barbarism,” Young said in the Aug. 23 piece. “Is Assad right in expecting no better than empty posturing from Washington? Or will the most overrated of American presidents be shamed into action, if only to salvage his collapsing reputation?”