I'm an extremist though...I believe in a moral imperative for combating genocide and war crimes everywhere and at all times regardless who the perpetrator and victims are. I really do believe we, and any superpower as part of the compact of being a superpower, are obliged to act as a global policeman...but so are the United Nations and the International Criminal Court. Further, I think it's critical that the US sign onto the ICC as part of that compact and as a sign of recognition of our obligation.
To be more direct to the question asked, I feel we should have intervened already and be working to prevent atrocities factually already being committed by both sides. The conflict changes from Serbia to Afghanistan (when the Taliban took over initially in the early 1990s) to Rwanda to Darfur to South Sudan to Libya to Syria but my position remains the same:
We have a irrevocable imperative to combat genocide everywhere and always that supersedes public opinion or the will of the American people. We are at our worst as a nation when we ignore this imperative.
(Conversely, I think pacifism and isolationism should be mocked and crushed wherever they rear their ugly heads as the true social evils they are. They are among the most reprehensible and unforgivable of human philosophical failures.)
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