Is it time for the U.S. to consider intervention in Syria?
As the war in Syria wears on, it has scattered millions of refugees into other countries, with many trying to find safe harbor in an overwhelmed Europe. It's part of the rising pressure on the U.S. and its European allies to re-evaluate what has been a hands-off policy in Syria.
"There's no question that you have to take a look at our policy," said CBS News Senior National Security Analyst Juan Zarate. "This is not a crisis that is episodic. It's not going to go away. You're going to see a flow of these refugees continue to come out of Syria as well as other places like Libya and Afghanistan and Iraq."
Instability in Syria is driving the mass exodus. Syrians are squeezed between the regime of their president, Bashar al-Assad, who has committed atrocities against civilians, and the militant Islamic groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which are destroying cities and communities.
"You're going to see more and more refugees leaving Syria unless there's a solution on the ground," Zarate said. There is no simple answer, though.
Countries have been wary of taking action that might help the Assad regime stay in power. But Assad presents far less of a threat to the West than to ISIS.
"Though the president says he wants to do certain things, the administration is really hedging here. They don't want to get caught in the quagmire of Syria," Zarate said. "They realize that the Assad regime has to go, but if the Assad regime goes, you've got Islamic marauders and extremists potentially taking advantage. And so we're at a loss for what our strategy is, and that's reflected on the ground."
Though Australia is insulated from the migrant flow, it's offered help, launching airstrikes that started earlier this week against ISIS targets. In Britain, lawmakers appear to be rethinking a 2013 vote blocking Prime Minister David Cameron's request for military action in Syria. France is also set to begin airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, a practice it had previously avoided because it would benefit Assad's regime.
"Nothing should be done to consolidate or keep Assad in power in Syria," French President Francois Hollande said Monday.
For the past year, the U.S. and five Arab allies have been bombing ISIS positions in Syria, but the insurgency has proven difficult to disrupt. Mr. Obama also signed legislation to arm and train 12,000 Syrian rebels to fight ISIS on the ground, but the program has been strikingly ineffective.
A top U.S. commander in the Middle East admitted Wednesday that only four or five moderate Syrian fighters the U.S. trained still remained on the battlefield.
"At the pace we're going we won't reach the goal that we had initially established for ourselves," Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of the war in Iraq and Syria, told a Senate panel.
After the first group of 54 fighters went into Syria in late July, they came under attack by a Syrian affiliate of al Qaeda which killed or captured several of the fighters.
"That is unbelievably paltry, and to a certain extent, ridiculous and embarrassing," Zarate said. "Obviously this is difficult. It's difficult to find the right allies on the ground who we're going to train. But I think it's endemic of a broader problem, the vagaries of what U.S. policy really is in Syria."
"Frankly that's embarrassing for the world's superpower and the president of the United States having committed to this to say that's where we are three plus almost four years after this conflict has begun," he added.
The Obama administration has also said it will not send ground troops into Syria.
And with Russia, which supports Assad, building up its military presence in Syria, the U.S. and Europe risk ceding their leading role on the international stage.