Articles like that make it sound like Americans have become so accustomed to moving unilaterally - ever since George W. chose to ignore the UN and attack Iraq - that they've forgotten the UN exists, but actually Washington is very away of the UN, because it's through the UN that Russia has been blocking any notion of UN action against the Assad regime.
In any case, unilateral, overt action against the Assads would be way too risky, because of how seriously Russia is invested in Syria and the Assad dynasty, so yeah, it would be insane.
The Assad dynasty has enjoyed cozy relations with Russia for four generations, and Syria is Russia's closest Mediteranian partner.
Under the Soviet system, Syria provided the USSR with its only Mediteranian naval base, at Tartus, and since the collapse of the Soviet system, Russia has been expanding and *upgrading* that base. Moscow sees the Tartus base in the same light as the so-called "eternal bases" that Cheny pushed for in Iraq.
Today's Russia is so intent on preserving its position in Syria that they forgave Syria $9.8 billion of its $13.4 Soviet-era debt. Russia has big Syrian investments through natural gas processor
Stroitransgaz, drilling and pipeline manager
Tatneft, steel pipe manufacturer
TMK, gas producer
ITERA, and national carrier
Aeroflot.
It would be very, very hard to do an attack on Syria without hitting a Russian investment. How does Washington react when a foriegn power damages her overseas investments?
The only glimmer of hope is that Russian diplomats have started suggested that *maybe* it's time for a leadership-change in Syria... not so much an overthrow of the Assad dynasty, but a change to which branch of the Assad family is running things.
Therefore, about all you can do without stepping on the bear's paw is pretty-much what's already being done, which is keep up pressure on the Assadians through cold-war style sneaking of ordinance to the rebels.
What I would add to that would be diplomatic level encouragement and support of Russia *if* she will use her clout to influence a regime change in Syria.
So-what if Russia gets kudos for brokering a peaceful settlement in Syria? She's not abandoning Syria anyway, so might as well encourage and support her if she'll go ahead and be the ones to provide some dashas for deposed Assadian refugees.
