Tom Friedman's Take on Syria

Same War, Different Country - NYTimes.com
This column by Tom Friedman pretty much sums up my sense of the issues facing us in Syria and, generally, in the Middle East.  We need to take a broader view of how to help the people of the Middle East establish a stable political and social society.   In the end, the kind of interventions we've seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya don't seem to solve the underlying issues in these countries--issues that have shaped the lives in the region since before World War I.   Middle Eastern culture demands a different kind of balance among politics, religion, and economics than we have the in West.

We continue to need a strong United Nations--or the equivalent on a regional level at least--to deal with issues like these.  Take away veto power from any one country and let's start solving the underlying problems.