Is Obama serious about chemical weapons?

The goal of any U.S. military action in Syria, U.S. President Barack Obama tells us, would be to prevent the future use of chemical weapons and to punish Syrian President Bashar Assad for his misdeeds.

“I have no interest in any kind of open-ended conflict in Syria,” Obama insisted during his interview Wednesday with CBS’s Gwen Ifill, “but we do have to make sure that when countries break international norms on weapons like chemical weapons that could threaten us, that they are held accountable.”