Keeping Us Out of the Middle East Quagmire

What's happening in Egypt and in Syria is unspeakable - whether you call it civil war, ethnic cleansing, genocide or plain political massacres - but there's one thing that would be far, far worse.

U.S. military intervention.

And make no mistake: if Smirky, or McPalin, or G.I. Luvmoney were President, we'd be counting the U.S. casualties in Syria and Egypt right now.

And those we be on top of the U.S. casualties in Iran.

President Barack Obama may look feckless in dealing with and even partly responsible for the violence in the Middle East right now, but the fact is that he has refrained from making the one mistake that would turn the current situation into a monster clusterfuck that would make Iraq look like a roundup of helpless pot-heads.

Despite being the world's sole superpower, the United States has far less actual power in reality than we had when the world was divided into two opposing camps. Now, we may have no state enemies, but we also have no real allies.

Maybe it's time to give the United Nations some real power.