He sees the handwriting on the wall. Trump will be pulled like a tug a war rope between those in his circle who want him to strike and those who don't

This is why Mattis cancelled his planned travel this week after Trump cancelled his trip to South America. Mattis knows that Trump cannot be left in charge of anything important.

Bet *45 is frustrated and looking for ways to go around him. Suspect firing him isn't an option even for him. Making enemies in every other cabinet department is easy. Making an enemy of the Pentagon another thing altogether,

Mattis will now be persona non grata in the "inner circle" (are there enough people left for an "outer circle"?) in the White House. The rumors will now start that Trump is "considering" replacing him. He'll be gone within two weeks. If Little Donnie doesn't get his way, Little Donnie gets a little pissy!

As General McCaffrey said, what happens if we kill Russians and Iranians? Do the Russians respond? We wouldn’t let our troops be killed by Russians- will Putin allow his troops to be killed from our air strike?
Do strikes get all the chemicals? We aren’t going to topple Assad with air power. That requires troops and almost certainly a war with Russia. We ain’t going to do that.

He's not that far down the line of succession, and at this point what other choice do we have!

that the most reasonable person trying to talk sense into Trump is a guy nick-named "Mad Dog"?

as long as the typically smart and informed people can't make a case for any kind of solution, I'm on the side of doing less: If the rest of the arab countries aren't going to get involved, who are we to interfere in a catastrophy?

Ok ok, we like to be the rescuers of the innocent. Right. That's one of our myths. We stopped Hitler. It was the right thing to do.

This situation is such a total mess, and it's already beyond saving.

If the locals really wanted us there, they'd be asking us to interfere. As far as I understand things, they're not asking.

Give the mess to Putin.

“ the typically smart and informed people can't make a case for any kind of solution“

not vice versa. We didn't even find out he was murdering Jews in mass numbers until 1942. We did a lot of business with Germany and tried to remain neutral until Japan and Germany dragged us into the war.

He does seem to be the last voice of reason left in that administration.

...he will call a strike on Syria just to show everyone that he’s the boss.

What could possibly go wrong?

From the Onion

https://politics.theonion.com/only-adult-left-in-trump-administration-named-mad-dog-1819592872