( CNN ) -- Among the most enduring urban legends about high-level policy-making in the U.S. government is the proverbial memo with three options : 1. do nothing ; 2. do everything ; 3. find a middle ground and muddle through . And yet in truth , Barack Obama really does have only three options in Syria . It appears that the president , rightly the avoider-in-chief when it comes to Syria , has chosen option three , the least bad alternative . And here 's why . Do nothing . This is n't really an option . Forget the fact that the president a year ago drew his own red line against Bashar al-Assad 's use of chemical weapons . Disregard the reality that this is reportedly the largest single deployment of chemical weapons since Saddam Hussein used them against the Kurds in 1988 ; dismiss the fact that 100,000 Syrians have died in this civil conflict ; and the president is accused of fiddling , Nero-like , while Syria burns . Just focus on the events of the past five days in Washington . What has been emanating from administration officials both on and off the record is the most well-advertised and telegraphed military action in the history of modern warfare . Rarely do we get this kind of preview of the operation , its size and character . Combine that with the Secretary of State John Kerry 's brief but powerful statement of moral outrage the other day and the president 's PBS interview , and you get as authoritative a commitment to strike as is humanly imaginable . Indeed , forceful statements and actions of the past few days have now constituted their own red line . And if the president does n't enforce it , he will be truly damaged goods when it comes to foreign policy for the remainder of his term . Neither his regional allies ( Israel and the Saudis ) nor his adversaries ( Iran , Hezbollah , Russia ) will find him credible or believable . As it is now , everyone says no to the U.S. without much cost or consequence . Do everything . From the beginning , Sens . John McCain and Lindsay Graham and a whole host of liberal interventionists and neoconservatives outside the government have repeatedly called for a more robust policy on Syria , even suggesting that the president , by not acting sooner , enabled all of this misery to unfold . Syria , the president 's critics maintain , is a major threat to U.S. interests -- and to our allies in the region -- and only a takedown of the al-Assad regime through supporting the opposition and direct application of U.S. military power will begin to address the problem . The argument has not called for boots on the ground but for extensive use of no-fly zones , the use of U.S. air and missile power to degrade the regime and military support for the opposition . President Obama has wisely and willfully avoided this approach . And he continues to avoid it now . The reason has to do with the general problem of an open-ended military commitment and the lack of correlation between the use of U.S. military power and its relation to the end state . Syria is in the throes of a brutal civil war . The opposition is composed of more than 1,000 disparate rebel groups , the most effective allied with al Qaeda and other Sunni extremists . A victory of the latter would be a blow to U.S. interests . Ousting al-Assad wo n't be cheap or easy . It took eight months to get rid of Libya 's Moammar Gadhafi , and he had no weapons of mass destruction , no serious air defenses or military capacity and no credible allies . And look at the end result : a post-Gadhafi environment in which there are too many guns , grievances and regional rivalries and no credible central authority . And Libya pales in comparison with Syria 's complexities . Devising a serious military strategy to get rid of al-Assad -- serious weapons for the rebels ; no-fly or -drive zones ; and sustained air/missile strikes against Syrian military units , infrastructure and leadership targets -- also means U.S. responsibility for what follows . Barack Obama has avoided this option because he rightly does n't want America getting stuck with the check for Syria . Muddle through . The option the U.S. is likely to undertake -- focused more narrowly on trying to deter the Syrians from using chemical weapons again and degrading al-Assad 's military capacity in the process -- is far from ideal . Although I think the administration 's military actions will be far more devastating than the limited strikes being talked about , it is unlikely to change the arc of the battlefield balance . There are other downsides , too . Once the glass ceiling against the use of force is broken , the expectations and pressures to use it again will grow . There 's always the danger too of a response by Hezbollah or Syria against Israel , however unlikely . And sooner or later , al-Assad will commit some other horror that will require another U.S. response . This kind of episodic intervention without a real strategy can undermine American credibility , too . To be sure , there are real risks in acting on option three , and Obama most assuredly is a reluctant warrior . Indeed , in view of the parliamentary opposition to British Prime Minister David Cameron 's willingness to join the U.S. , he may be a lonely warrior , too . But he 's going to war with Syria nonetheless . Al-Assad 's apparent use of chemical weapons , the president 's own words and those of others in his administration leave him no other choice . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Aaron Miller .
Aaron Miller says President Obama seems to be leaning to the least bad option in Syria . The White House is weighing a plan that would allow Syrian rebels and their allies to take control of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, U.S. officials told CNN on Tuesday. Miller : If Obama does n't act after large chemical weapons attack , he 'll be written off as ineffective .