As the conflict in Syria churns out a ghastly human carnage, diplomatic efforts to halt the violence are shadowed by last year's intervention in the Libyan conflict, which resulted in a six-month-long military operation to topple a tyrant.
So, when the U.N. Security Council met again on Britain's initiative to debate the situation in the Middle East, there was a focused theme to stop the spiral of violence in Syria even as there was an underlying and unspoken agreement not to introduce the threat of outside military force.
One year ago the Security Council passed a powerful, but legally open-ended, resolution to protect the besieged Libyan civilians in Benghazi, who were in the gun sights of Moammar Gadhafi's regime. Acting under the "responsibility to protect" principle, the Anglo/French and American mission quickly evolved into a full blown NATO air assault over the vastness of Libya, which ushered in regime change.