In your reasons for being "isolationist" rather than "world policeman" you left out that there is no justification for the US government to police the whole world. Our military is properly for the our national interest of protecting our own country, and there is no justification for any president to do anything else, including under treaties. It doesn't matter whether others think that anything is a "thankless job", "play Monday morning quarterback", or view us with "suspicion".

Napolitano is wrong in asserting that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and "Syria is not a threat to the U.S., nor is it likely to become one". The Syrian government is not our friend, and easily deliverable weapons of mass destruction are a threat to everyone, especially from maniac dictators.

What we should do about it depends on an objective military assessment of what can be done and what is most effective in countering the overall threat, not a "principle" to bomb everything in sight perceived to be a threat.

Everyone should be appalled at the Syrian gassing of innocent civilians -- with or without seeing videos of children writhing under the affects of nerve gas. Anyone who wants to has a right to obstruct or stop that in any way he can, but it is not a justification for the US military to go off on an emotional mission. The threat of gassing cities in the US is a justification for it to bomb the regime that did it.

Trump emotionally appealed to "The chiiiilduuun" because he is a liberal, emotional thinker without objective principles. He tends to say what he thinks and feels as it shifts in the wind and in accordance with whatever he heard last, not rationalize his actions with propaganda contrary to his motives. But it is unlikely that that is what drove the military advice given to him regarding bombing Syria for its chemical attack.

Assad doesnt have "rights" anymore after what he has done. The bombing was a message to many countries, and it worked. In addition, there wont be any more chemical attacks on innocent people.

First, Andrew Napolitano cited the UN Charter not the NATO treaty. He wrote: "The U.N. Charter limits member nations' use of military force to defensive responses to actual attacks, pre-emptive strikes prior to nearly certain attacks and correctives pursuant to U.N. consent or pursuant to another treaty obligating military force to help an ally."

Your point about Turkey and NATO, however, is important. Consider Washington's Farewell Address.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_centu... (The Avalon Project of Yale Law School is a tremendous treasury of historical documents for anyone interested in constitutional law.) Washington warned against getting involved in Europe's wars. Regarding Turkey, the warning applies because we were forced between Turkey and Greece several times, most dramatically over Cyrus. The intention of NATO was to protect Western Europe from a Russian invasion. It was never intended to jump in on every border war, which is what any conflict involving Turkey in Syria would be.

In particular, the map of the Middle East - Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Saudia Arabia and the Gulf emirates, all of that - was carved arbitrarily from the Ottoman Empire as their price for being on the losing side of World War I. France took its share (Syria, Lebanon); England got its (oil fueling stations for its fleet). There is no right and wrong, except as it was all wrong. Where in Iraq and all of that do you find Kurdistan? Why did the Kurds not get their own country? I mean, just arbitrarily ... as the whole thing was arbitrary ...

And the USA has been in the middle of it all, not just in any rational support for Israel, but meddling in the push-and-shove of the Middle East: selling arms to Iraq to fight Iran; then selling arms to Iran...

Look at a map. Was there any reason that Kuwait should not have been absorbed by Iraq? No one in Kuwait stayed to fight. One guy, a colonel with a jet fighter, put up a fight. The rest of the royal family fled because they knew that no one would fight for Kuwait. That is not what happened when Nazi Germany threatened Switzerland. But the Swiss are invested in Switzerland, literally. No one in Kuwait was invested in Kuwait because Kuwait was never really a nation with a history.

That message was clear to the Saudis. So, they hired the USA to invade Kuwait, push out Iraq, and protect Saudi Arabia. Our infidel presence in the home of Islam iis what angered the Wahabbis and Ussama bin Ladin.

And maybe they needed the wake up call to the 20th century, but there were many ways to achieve that without military intervention in a war that was none of our business. Saddam Hussein was not a threat to the United States.

Moreover, to the conflict at hand, if we were to take sides in Syria, it should be with the government of Syria. What do you know about Dr. Bashar al-Assad or his father, the previous ruler, Hafez al-Assad?

We have cultures that will gas kids. Amazing...

Heck - I understand there's horrific footage of us droning kids. (shaking my head...)

I disagree with CircuitGuy and the good Judge. There are time that one must act. This was one of those times. It is not the first time that Asad used chemicals on non-combatants. There is at least one other confirmed time, most like two other times. If Asad will use Saran on his own people, even if they are considered rebels, he would not hesitate to use it on troops of another nation. I'm not talking about the US I'm talking about Turkey. If he uses Saran on Turkish troops Turkey might claim their right to assistance fro NATO. That really puts us in a very tight spot. War or disavowing an ally. There is the NATO treaty, and as the good judge points out, it must be followed since it is the law of the land and supreme, just like the Constitution.

I imagine being president. I don't believe in the US maintaining a massive global empire to police the world. I believe policing the world is a thankless job. When you step up and take action in any endeavor, you're bound to make mistakes, and it's easy for people not taking action to play Monday morning quarterback. In war, you help one side in a fight only to discover once they defeat our common enemy, they don't have much in common with us. Since US has been on top since WWII, they naturally view us with suspicion and wrongly suspect our success comes through our global empire controlling the world's wealth. Local politicians corroborate this by scapegoating us for things that are really their fault.

So for all these reasons I'm a so-called "isolationist" imagining being POTUS. The evidence strongly suggests the Syrian gov't used chemical weapons on rebels, killing non-combatants, some children. The chairman of the joint chiefs gives me options of various levels response. I carry on about my "isolationist" philosophy and asking why are they saying "what's American going to do?" instead of "what's the EU or China going to do?"
The chairman knows way more about this than I do. He's studied the Roman Empire, Clausewitz, the details on how the world wars played out, and how the Cold War shaped the modern world. He politely and matter-of-factly says, I would be happy to discuss geopolitical philosophy. You have good points about how we shouldn't be the only ones policing the world. Regardless of how it should be, we are the only ones with a massive military capable of responding. Failing to respond might be seen as a green light for future chemical weapons attacks. Do you want our military forces to respond in any way?

It might be hard to say no. I think I would ask about the moderate, proportional response that in recent history the US would use to send a message/warning that might save future lives; and I might end up going that route.

I suspect some scenario like this is what motivated President Trump to attack Syria. If so, I sympathize and might have done the same thing.

The conspiracy-theory explanations (in other articles, not this one) of the security establishment conspiring to discredit the president ring completely false to me. I lean toward accepting things at face value: The Syrian gov't really did use chemical weapons. They used them b/c they work so well. They rationalized that dying from chemical weapons isn't much worse than dying from bullets or bombs. President Trump really is generally against intervening in foreign conflicts and really was moved to do something in response to children hurt or killed by the attack.

So I agree with Judge Napolitano. It's easier to do what I think is the right thing, i.e. not intervene, with the responsibility is not resting on your shoulders.