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Syria becomes a greater emergency with each passing day. This week Defense Minister Daoud Rajiha and other members of President Bashar al-Assad's inner circle were murdered; opposition groups claimed responsibility. Last week Nawaf al-Fares, Syria's ambassador to Iraq, resigned from the government and joined the opposition, and the government's militiamen apparently shot villagers in Tremseh at close range.cnn There is growing consensus across the American political spectrum that al-Assad must go, that opposition forces must be armed in order to contend for political power, and that the situation in Syria is a strategic issue for the United States and its allies. On the Senate floor earlier this year, Sen. John McCain spoke for many analysts when he discussed the strategic significance of Syria: "The end of the Assad regime would sever Hezbollah's lifeline to Iran, eliminate a long-standing threat to Israel, bolster Lebanon's sovereignty and independence, and inflict a strategic defeat on the Iranian regime. It would be a geopolitical success of the first order." The humanitarian dimension of Syria's crisis is underscored by reports claiming that anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 people have been killed there in the past 17 months of violence.cnn Falling prey to election-year politicking, President Barack Obama, Gov. Mitt Romney, and their campaign surrogates eschew frank discussion of Syria and its implications -- to answer hard questions about sacrificing life and spending treasure abroad in yet another Middle East battlefield is to open up political risks that cannot be calculated. That's why it is worth recalling events of the early 1980s and former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger's national security doctrine.

Kiron K. Skinner On June 6, 1982, Israel, seeking to relieve pressure on its northern borders by dismantling the Palestine Liberation Organization's base of operation, invaded Lebanon, a country beset by civil war and Syrian occupation. Soon thereafter, France, Italy and the United States formed a multinational force to help stabilize the country -- as differing factions of Arabs and Christians as well as the Israelis and Syrians were in a tangled web of conflict -- and allow PLO fighters to leave the country. The PLO withdrawal was completed by August 30, and the MNF departed on September 10, but the story did not end there.cnn The MNF failed to stabilize Lebanon. President-elect Bashir Gemayel was killed in his Phalange party headquarters on September 14. In the days that followed, Israeli forces stood by as Lebanese Phalangists massacred Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, an act of retribution for the assassination of Gemayel, which may, in fact, have been undertaken by pro-Syrian forces.