The only slight possibility of this being the new Iraq is if, and it's very unlikely, the Jihadist minority happens to come out on top in this civil war. The we'll have to go in to secure the WMD's, which unlike Iraq, we know 100% that Assad has them.
Right now it's a proxy war among the Sunni's and Shia's just like the Iraq/Iran war of the last decade. It was in the best interest of both the US and Russia to keep those two fighting and killing each other. It kept Russia as the main arms supplier to Iran and it kept our arch enemy at bay through attrition and degradation of their forces. For those of short memory, Iran held our diplomats hostage for a year and a half and destroyed Jimmy Carter's Presidency. At that time we were supplying weapons, including chemical to Saddam Hussein.
It's my opinion that the US doesn't especially want a winner any time soon. They just want to be sure that the country isn't taken over by Al-Qaeda elements. So, now that Assad is appearing to get the upper hand, we need to go back and even the playing field a bit.
Quite often, reality is quite different than what you see on TV.
opcorn:
