Well, much of what he says it true from a political and strategic perspective.
But I do not believe what he says holds regarding the tactical capabilities of Syria and Iran.
The Carrier Group off of Pakistan is not going to be surprised. They are well aware of the threat, and as soon as a decision if made to attack Syria they will be ready for any contingency. Short of using nuclear weapons, which would invite whole sale destruction to Iran, they do not have the air or naval forces to take down an alert US Naval US Carrier Battle Group.
Syria has a decent air force, but they do not have the types of long range precision weapons to fire at the US Navy tot ake advantage of it. Unless they have a BUNCH of air launched Yahkont missiles, and I do not believe they have any, or that their aircraft have been set up to deploy them.
Israel attacked and destroyed a large number of their ground launched Yahkonts and the US Navy knows this too and the Tomahawks outrange the Yahkonts. So the US SAG will simply stay out of range as they stage their attacks. This means even two hundred Syrian aircraft attacking at once against the combined weight of five Arleigh Burke DDGs (not four as the authors says) and one French Horizon DDG are going to get slaughtered if they have to enter the anti-air missile envelope of that group to launch their own weapons.
This might be the best opportunity to try and attack these US forces...but it is not a good one given the imbalance of power, weapons, technology, and real combat effectiveness. Therefore, I thik it a very, very long shot that such a thing will be attempted...but you can bet that the US Navy planners have considered it and have prepared for it if tey try...and that contingency has already been communicated to the commanders of those groups, and from them in their planning to the commanders of each vessel.
Anyhow, let's hope that the US Congress hands Obama a big fat NO in any case.
I browsed Russian servers and found the chart shown below (it seems to be a photo of the chart, probably taken at a stand in some weapons exhibition). According to wikipedia, Syria operates 20 Su-24 bombers, and purchased 78 X-31 anti-ship missiles (I don't know of which version); each aircraft can carry up to three of them. I translated the text on the original chart and added some comments ... My rough estimate, only based on the speed and weight of the warhead, is a hit would be as bad as from a 5" shell. How dangerous this would be to a modern destroyer?
