That New Yorker piece is really brilliant.
I'm not really calling for bombs, actually. Because I don't think they would work. I don't think anything will work, actually, including isolationism.
I think a nice targeted assassination might be good, though. We haven't done one of those in a long time.
But the problem would still be: Who would take over in Syria? IU think all of the choices stink.
The trouble with the Middle and Near East (says PJ) is that they've never managed to develop (or, perhaps, had a chance to develop) charismatic leaders who value the lives of the people over sectarian divisions, tribal loyalties and religious imperatives. So this endless cycle of dictators and autocrats, broken up by colonialism and rebellion. But never has there been a leader who stands up for the people.
Golda Meir once said famously (or infamously, depending how you feel about Golda Meir), "There will be peace between Arabs and Jews when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us."
There will be peace in all of the Middle and Near East when leaders of all the countries, Sunni and Shia, Islamist and secular, Muslim and Jewish--value peace and coexistence over supremacy.