For more than a month now, the United States and much of the international community have been consumed by the issue of how to respond to the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons. The motivation behind the different proposals—first a missile strike, now a major disarmament effort—is eminently reasonable: to ensure that Syria never uses these weapons again. And the prospects for success appear to be rather good in my judgment, though that is clearly a contentious matter.
But what about the broader problem? Simply eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons isn’t going to stop the carnage that has already claimed some 100,000 lives. Are we really content to sit by and watch this killing continue? Or should we be trying to stop it?
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