The media and Mueller are obsessed with trivial issues such as $130,000 for a porn star.  In the real world, President Trump has to decide whether to bomb Syria to punish it because Bashar Assad used chemical weapons to kill Syrians.  As we all know, this is a complicated civil war in Syria, with Assad, aided by Iran and Russia, fighting the rebels.

For the sake of argument, let us assume that Assad ordered the use of chemical weapons to kill.  Why should we then bomb Syria?

The arguments to bomb Syria include that the United States as the leader of the free world cannot allow Assad to use chemical weapons.  This is essentially a moral argument, especially during this week of Holocaust remembrance.  Hitler used chemical and other weapons to kill six million Jews, millions of Gypsies, homosexuals, Catholic and Protestant clergy, and others in the concentration camps.

If we were not at war with Nazi Germany while this was happening, we should have, according to the moral argument, bombed Germany to stop the killings.  It should not matter that Hitler killed millions but Assad killed far fewer.

The argument against bombing Syria is a practical one.  The bombing will not kill Assad or his generals but will kill Syrians unlucky to be at the military sites we bomb.  There are atrocities committed by dictators throughout the world, such as the USSR's gulag, the prisons in North Korea and Cuba, China killing over 60 million in its Cultural Revolution and imposing a one-child birth policy enforced with compulsory abortions, and the numerous civil wars in Africa.  These dictators did not always use chemical weapons, but they still killed many.  Should we not bomb Syria because we did not bomb those countries?  Does it matter how dictators kill their own, with chemicals or other means?

Further, we can bomb Syria without fear of retaliation from Syria, but we cannot predict how Russia and Iran will react.  We did not bomb the USSR or China or Cuba or North Korea or the African countries because of the danger of retaliation.

One issue is whether we are the world's policeman to intervene in countries that are abusing and killing their residents.  If we follow the moral argument, then we are the world's policeman.  But we do not have the resources or the will to intervene in every bad country.

The other issue is whether we have a national interest such that bombing Syria will make us more secure.  This is doubtful.  Assad for all his crimes has not made war on Christians, such as ISIS, nor on those who do not oppose his rule.

Iran is aiding Assad, which means that if Assad wins, then Iran will control Syria and become even more powerful in the Middle East.  Iran has vowed to destroy Israel.  Iran is the chief sponsor of Islamist terrorism.  But if we topple Assad, we may end up with a Syria resembling Libya and Iraq.  We definitely should not get involved in nation-building in Syria.

This is an important critical decision.  The Democrats and media, who oppose Trump on every issue, and are working to remove him as president, favor bombing Syria.  Their motives are suspect because they opposed the war in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein also used chemical weapons on Iraqis and Kurds.  They want to see Trump embroiled in Syria so he is distracted from his agenda.

Regardless of whether he has the authority to bomb Syria, President Trump should place the issue before Congress, as Bush did in 1991, to ask for a vote.  It is not a declaration of war, but let Congress debate and vote.  Give Congress something important to debate.

There are important questions to debate, with good arguments to bomb or not to bomb.  Let Congress earn its pay, take a stand, and state positions.  Let us see how the Democrats, such as Booker, Harris, Gillibrand, and others who plan to run for the presidency in 2020, vote so we have them on record.