No imminent and direct threat to the United States

Here is what Barack Obama said in 2002, when the US was considering an invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq:

[Saddam Hussein] is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

Neo-Neocon writes,

Interesting, no? Especially that phrase, “Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors.” These arguments of Obama’s—which if true of Saddam Hussein (and at the time it was not at all clear they were true) are even more true of Assad — have fallen by the wayside this time, and are being advanced by Obama’s opponents rather than by Obama or his supporters.

In addition, if Assad were to fall or be weakened, who would rise to the ascendance in Syria? There is a general consensus that it would be Al Qaeda-affiliated “rebels.” And so one might argue that keeping hands off Assad, terrible though he is, is actually better for US (and even world) interests than the looming alternative.

It is fairly apparent from his 2002 speech that Obama believed that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons and was intent on developing nuclear weapons, and yet Obama did not believe that was enough to constitute an “imminent and direct” threat of any sort to the US or to justify action. This was the party line of the day, and now the party in charge is a different party, and so different rules apply.