(CNN) -- It is time to stop focusing on the next month and start focusing on the years to come. Syria is not a chemical weapons crisis any more than a country whose problems can be solved by supporting the rebels. Like many of the countries in the Middle East -- Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Tunisia and Yemen -- it has already been destabilized by a mixture of population pressures, weak economic development, authoritarianism, corruption, failed governance, and deep ethnic and sectarian divisions. It will take years for them to achieve stability and move along some path toward growth and development.
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Anthony Cordesman: None of Syria's problems can be solved until its civil war is solved
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Cordesman: The U.S. must be involved for both humanitarian reasons and self-interest
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He says at the same time, the U.S. must carefully ration its aid and resources to the region
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Cordesman: Sadly, Syria is just this month's crisis in a region full of complicated conflicts
Reports that @placeholder officials have turned over materials to prove the August 21 chemical attack was carried out by the rebels only further complicates matters.