Clinton and our allies have to point out what success in this cluster-event will look like.

This piece in the NYT today, Heavy Pressure Led to Decision by Obama on Syrian Arms, makes it clear to me that Drum's gut reaction is right and Drezner is wrong, that that's not a conscious Obama administration policy:

“We believe that we can make a difference,” Mr. Rhodes said Friday. The aid will ensure that the rebels are “able to firm up their position” and become more cohesive. “We still believe that there is not a scenario we can foresee where Bashar al-Assad can remain in power in a country that so clearly rejects his rule.”

Even as he outlined those goals, though, Mr. Rhodes made clear the limits of Mr. Obama’s willingness to achieve them. The president wants to avoid sending “heavier weapons systems,” Mr. Rhodes said, recognizing that they might fall into the hands of Al Nusra Front, an opposition group affiliated with Al Qaeda. Sending American troops is “off the table,” Mr. Rhodes added, citing the difficulties they faced stopping violence during the Iraq war. And as for a no-fly zone, he said “we don’t at this point believe that the U.S. has a national interest in pursuing a very intense, open-ended military engagement through a no-fly zone in Syria.”

Now I am cynical about articles like this and other stuff. For example, I got a cynical reaction about Clinton's statements, was thinking that he might be in with the administration in preparing the public for more involvement, and that the reporters were falling for it and not reading those statements for that nuance.

But what really convinced me that the case truly is that Obama doesn't like any of the options and doesn't know what to do is that even Senator Corker, who wanted more involvement, does not think they are thinking that way, with such surety:

Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, has urged the administration for months to arm the opposition yet also opposes a no-fly zone. While he supported Mr. Obama’s latest decision, he said the president had not articulated a long-term strategy, but instead seemed to be responding in a “transactional, ad hoc” basis, buffeted by competing views around him.

“As I watch from the outside, I do think that it’s just very difficult for them to come to a place and settle upon it,” Mr. Corker said. “There are a lot of different voices, there’s a lot of agonizing.”

The article has clearly been partly fed by Obama aides and I started out reading it cynically. But the Corker part made it clear to me that the confusion about what to do is honest.

There was also this, a good point by Baker:

His ambivalence about the decision seemed evident even in the way it was announced. Mr. Obama left it to a deputy national security adviser, Benjamin J. Rhodes, to declare Thursday evening that the president’s “red line” on chemical weapons had been crossed and that support to the opposition would be increased. At the time, Mr. Obama was addressing a gay pride event in the East Room. On Friday, as Mr. Rhodes was again dispatched to defend the move at a briefing, the president was hosting a Father’s Day luncheon in the State Dining Room.

If you recall Obama's announcements about intervention in Libya, this is not how he handles things when he is sure of his decision about how to proceed. Seems like wishes he never made that |"red line" statement and sees it as a mistake, and combined with others pressuring him, that's what's making him go with more intervention. Having Rhodes do the announcing here makes it clear Obama has no interest in continuing with saber rattling. He wasn't so shy of doing that with Libya, there he was sure he had made the right decision and was willing to put the full force of presidential bully pulpit behind it. He's tends to be far from wussy when he's sure of what he's decided to do, is more like arrogant.

I'm no longer cynical, I truly think he is morose about the options with this.

And now I think what Clinton was doing was putting out some support for the factions in the administration that were advising to put more into this. That Clinton knew of Obama's waffling and angst, and was trying to get the message to him: you'll regret that, you've got to risk a little more action.

I have to admit that this idea had already occurred to me, but it also occurred to me that if I were Obama and this was my game plan, I would not mention this to anyone in writing, and to very few people (if any) orally. To those I might mention it to orally, even then it would probably be through a plausibly deniable manner. (E.g., simply ruminating out loud.)