Danger on the road to Damascus

NEOCONS are not dead; they were only sleeping. As the nostrils of hibernating bears twitch in the warming breeze after winter, so the smell of cordite from Syria wafts across the armchairs of the liberal interventionists and appetites quicken. Trigger fingers start to quiver.

Out come all the old arguments, time-honoured cues for the easy applause that has cheered on blunder after blunder down the ages and cheered on the Crusaders in the same place in another age. "Something must be done." "We cannot stand idly by." "Just because we cannot do everything doesn't mean we can't do anything." "Never mind the logic, cut through the legalism: this is quite simply the right thing to do."
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