All you interventionists who advocate for using the US military to somehow “stop” the civil war in Syria and indirectly pick a pro-Western winner, can you look around at our previous record of trying to establish Jeffersonian democracies in the region first? What’s happened with Iraq? Well, it’s closer to Iran than it is to us. Afghanistan? Please. That “democracy” won’t survive our departure next year.

Besides that, the democracy we supposedly have right here at home isn’t in the best of shape. Witness the refusal by the two senior Republicans in Congress to fulfill their duty under law and appoint three members of the Independent Payment Advisor Board, a panel “tasked with making cuts to Medicare provider payments (it may not touch benefits) if costs exceed economic growth plus an additional percentage point in any given year.” Witness also the Republicans’ refusal to confirm a director for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Maybe we should solve our own democratic fiasco before jumping into another one in a place where we don’t even understand who the players are and what their ultimate goals might be.