President Obama says the U.S. has "serious interests" in Syria, but he is aware of the pitfalls of over-involvement in the civil war there.
"It is very easy to slip slide your way into deeper and deeper commitments," Obama told Charlie Rose of PBS, because people will always want to do more if things don't go well.
"Now, on the other side there are folks who say, you know, 'we are so scarred from Iraq. We should have learned our lesson. We should not have anything to do with it,'" Obama said. "Well, I reject that view as well because the fact of the matter is, is that we've got serious interests there."
In his first public comments since the administration announced stepped-up aid to the rebels in Syria, Obama warned of "ongoing chaos in a major country" which borders a major ally in Jordan, which in turn borders Israel.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2013/06/18/obama-syria-iraq-charlie-rose/2433587/