Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Ready to go to war in Syria?

The fellas over at the Foreign Policy Initiative seem eager to intervene in Syria. They’re proposing establishing "a safe zone" that would be protected by a "no fly zone." They don’t go into details of whether there would be boots on the ground. The board of directors are Eric Edelman, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, and ...

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
Adam Dean/Panos Pictures
Adam Dean/Panos Pictures
Adam Dean/Panos Pictures

The fellas over at the Foreign Policy Initiative seem eager to intervene in Syria. They're proposing establishing "a safe zone" that would be protected by a "no fly zone."

The fellas over at the Foreign Policy Initiative seem eager to intervene in Syria. They’re proposing establishing "a safe zone" that would be protected by a "no fly zone."

They don’t go into details of whether there would be boots on the ground.

The board of directors are Eric Edelman, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, and Dan Senor. I know some of youse will get upset by those names, but I think the first three are some of the most thoughtful conservative interventionists around. (I don’t know Senor well. I think I have only met him once or twice and have never read much of what he has written.)

Personally, I am sick of Americans being involved in wars in the Middle East. I don’t like this plan of keeping on trying ’til we find we all like. That said, I find it a bit awkward to explain why I thought it was the right thing to help intervene in Libya but not in Syria. I find David Ignatius persuasive (as usual) on why we should do more than we are doing, but less than Foreign Policy Initiative recommends.  

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

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