AA - the only people getting worked up about this are the US, UK and Fr - all countries with centre / centre left administrations and a generally Liberal outlook on life, who are keen to send other people to war when their dinner table conversations get a bit too close for comfort and they need to feel as though they are doing something.
If Syria is such a problem, why are the Arab states not squaring up to Assad? Why are they not front and centre, after all, this is in their own back yard, not ours. They are the ones with the most to lose when this all goes horribly wrong. Or alternatively, just what do the Arab states know or understand that we seemingly don't?
Your first paragraph is I feel is very true, in that they'd never wave their sons or daughters off to war, that's for the 'ordinary little people' who are not 'one of us' but in the world of the old saying is 'that they sleep soundly in their beds because rough men stand on the walls to protect them'
The second paragraph, every time they've gone to war against another country usually Israel, they have had their a**es handed to them in bag after a damn good kicking and being told to get back in their boxes, but very good at torturing and killing their own people when the opposition is week or non existent.