PrintSeptember 16, 2013
Strategic Blindness in Syria
War is a messy business. Serial wars get even more untidy over time. Often, it's hard to know where one begins and another ends. Such is the case today as the Arab spring looks like another Muslim winter. America and Europe stumble from one conflict venue to another wondering what happened to all those rosy assertions about jasmine, justice, moderation, and modernity. The Islamic world is a mess and no one has a clue as to where or how the sequential mayhem ends. In Syria, the nanny states of the West are again perched on the brink of another sectarian and/or tribal abyss.
Nonetheless, the optimism of intervention still prevails. Today you hear argument after argument about the responsibilities of power and success -- or preaching about very selective humanitarian concerns. If you read enough foreign policy analysis you might come to believe that someone has the answer, or that somehow Europe and America have the "responsibility" to make the Third World well. Never mind that...(Read Full Article)
