Debating Burma

Robert Kaplan has an op-ed in the New York Times today making the case for intervention; Matt, meanwhile, sorts through the political gesturing around using force in Burma: 

Realistically, you're not going to see a forceful U.N. intervention in Burma because no country capable of mounting such an operation (basically the U.S. and maybe Britain and France) would want to mount one, while Russia and China (and probably even post-colonial democracies like India) would be opposed to anyone mounting one, and democratic countries would be secretly glad that Russia and China would block a move like this because they could blame inaction on Russia and China (or, like Fred Hiatt, toss blame vaguely in the direction of "the U.N.") for a domestic audience even though they wouldn't want to step in themselves.

Ross counters that liberal hawks will eventually tire of inaction and return to a "UN-skeptical approach to the world's troubles that at present is defended primarily by neoconservatives."