Some wars are fought on strategic ground. Others are fought in places that have no strategic value, but the forces engaged there bestow importance upon it. And sometimes neither the ground nor the fight is important to any nation not directly engaged. This last is the view we should take on the fighting now taking place in Syria.

Syria is a state sponsor of terrorism, so labeled by the State Department in 1979 when it was ruled by Hafez al-Assad, father of its current leader, Bashar. That label remains, despite Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s ill-considered characterization of the younger Assad as a “reformer.” Shortly after that comment from Clinton, the younger Assad began a campaign of brutal repression against anti-regime demonstrators that soon evolved into street fighting and then outright civil war between the Syrian factions. The fighting is now in its 19th month.