For some reason, likening the Chechens to the South Ossetians strikes me as wrongheaded. And likening the Russian invasion of a sovereign nation to the American invasion of a sovereign nation is also strange thinking.
As I read more about this conflict, the only thing that becomes abundantly clear is not a mandate for intervention, but rather the situation’s complexity. Dismissing conservative reluctance to get involved in Kosovo as “isolationist,” or even “anti-humanitarian” is the same sort of hyperbole that leads to unnecessary flexing of military might. Wars we don’t have to get involved with are far more preferable than ones we do.
