A month, if not a week, is a long time in politics. It may seem quixotic to display any optimism in the wake of the atrocious murders in Nairobi and the under-reported but no less shocking bomb attack on Christians in Peshawar, but we were in a far worse place only a few weeks ago. We looked to be on the verge of another disastrous Middle East war. A bombing of Syria as punishment for use of weapons of mass destruction might well have been matched by an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. The consequences would have been incalculable in such an unstable region. To the suggestion from President Obama that this would be a surgical, limited (both in time and scope) operation, comes a line from Machiavelli: “Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.&rdquo