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As I write this on Tuesday, C-SPAN is broadcasting a hearing of the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee where Obama administration officials are attempting to put forward a persuasive rationale for direct military invention in Syria.

The administration has already blown past the president’s initial plan to deliver a limited missile strike intended to deter Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from making further use of chemical weapons in that country’s ongoing civil war.

Now the military goal has been expanded to include “degrading” Syria’s military capacity for chemical warfare “now and in the future,” and strengthening rebel armies by stepping up training and supplying increasingly lethal weapons.

Mission creep is already underway.

It’s no wonder Americans are alarmed at the prospect of seeing our country drawn into yet another chaotic situation in a region where two wars have already sapped our economy, undermined our values, cost thousands of lives, and left Iraq in ruins and Afghanistan still at war.

Secretary of State John Kerry has tried his best to cloak a military strike as a moral imperative by calling up images of the victims of the recent chemical weapon attack, allegedly launched by the Syrian government.

But this inevitably fails, primarily because the U.S. track record in such things is too spotty to allow us to credibly claim the moral high ground.

Just last week, Foreign Policy published a detailed account of how the CIA assisted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, by providing intelligence and targeting information which was then used to direct the use of chemical and nerve agents, including sarin, the gas allegedly used in Syria.

The Foreign Policy article, based on recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former officials, far more devastating than anything Syria has seen.”

This doesn’t at all excuse or justify any use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war.

It does, however, considerably undercut the holier-than-thou tone Secretary Kerry has used in his attempt to pressure those who remain uncomfortable with the prospect of entanglement in yet another Middle East military adventure.

There’s another set of issues involved here. Recall that the U.S. initially was drawn into a covert war in Afghanistan supporting the local warlords and Mujahideen fighting against the Russian occupation. It was seen as a way to bog the Russians down in a costly war, a form of geopolitical harassment which, years later, unexpectedly blew back in our faces in the form of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, and 9/11.

Knowledge of that history prompts me to wonder about the extent to which U.S. covert operations have contributed to the current situation in Syria. Documents released last year by WikiLeaks included a report filed by an employee of a major corporate intelligence contractor. It detailed conversations with staff of the Air Force strategic studies group in late 2011 that referred to personnel already on the ground to help Syrian rebels with reconnaissance and training.

Were we feeding the uprising in Syria as a way to weaken an ally of Iran, in the same way that we secretly supported Afghan rebels as a way to weaken the Russian empire?

The incredibly complex geopolitics of the region, a millennium of religious factionalism and conflict, with an overlay of western colonialism, and it’s clear to me that whatever is going on in Syria doesn’t fit the stark “good guys vs. bad guys” scenario being peddled by the Obama administration.

One final note worth making: Syria could be the first clear example of a climate change war, according to an August 2012 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

A drought of historic proportions hit Syria in 2006 and lasted four years, twice as long as any other in recent history. It devastated the agricultural parts of the country, and its impacts were magnified by government mistakes, poor water policies, and an unsustainable reliance on export crops. Thousands of illegal wells were drilled as small farmers or herdsmen tried desperately to survive, further depleting water reserves.

Nearly a million people were forced out of their homes and villages, many ending up in temporary settlements on the outskirts of urban areas.

It was in Dara’a, one of those cities, where the current Syrian war began with children painting anti-Assad slogans on walls. About 15 children were arrested, and when the arrests were met with protests, the government reacted violently.

“Security forces cracked down with tear gas, water cannons and, ultimately, live rounds,” according to a New York Times report at the time. A number of people were killed before the government backed off, but it was too late. The spark of protest spread, bringing us to the unpleasant point where we, and the people of Syria, find ourselves at today.

Attacking climate change has proved difficult for governments, including our own. Waging wars, despite the terrible costs, seem easier for us to manage. A missile attack on government installations and a newly invigorated arms race on the ground may fill a need to “do something,” but don’t seem capable of de-escalating the violence and finding ways to empower those within Syria seeking a future without war.

In an interview yesterday with the conservative French newspaper, Le Figaro, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad threw a question back at U.S. lawmakers.

“Before they vote, they should ask themselves a simple question: What have previous wars achieved for America, or even for Europe? What has the world achieved from the war in Libya and the spread of terrorism in its aftermath? What has the world achieved from the wars in Iraq and other places?”

Those are fair questions, despite the source. And an honest answer is that these wars have not made the world better or safer. And more of the same won’t change that.