What I find risible is Peter K's position is that one size must fit all. Whilst ignoring what caused UN (Note that Peter - UN) intervention in Libya.

For years Libya was a pariah state which sponsored terrorism throughout the world and was isolated and contained. Then came 9/11 and the post-9/11 US Threat Evaluations where Libya found itself quite near the top of a list of countries that US Intelligence Agencies compiled as potential candidates for the role of "Rogue State", the list also included Iraq; Iran; Syria & North Korea.

This gave Col Muammar Gaddafi pause for thought particularly as he watched the heat being ratcheted up against the country on the top of the list - Iraq. Neither France, China or Russia were whispering in Gaddafi's ear as they were advising Saddam that, "The US are only bluffing. They won't do anything they can't do anything because we'll use our veto to stop them."

Then in March 2003 the USA took out the #1 Candidate for "Rogue State". Gaddafi folded because he knew something about the US Intelligence Agencies list of likely "Rogue State" candidates - ALL were running secret nuclear weapons programmes aided, abetted and facilitated by Dr A.Q.Khan's network.

Gaddafi lost his nerve and dramatically renounce ALL of Libya's WMD programmes and in the process of "coming clean" he led the revelation of Khan's highly illegal network and North Korea's involvement in it.

There is only one reason you run a secret nuclear weapons programme - it means that you intend to use those weapons offensively - a secret nuclear weapons programme has no deterrent value whatsoever.

As the layers of Khan's onion were pealed away Iran crash stopped its weapons programme in 2003 to see which way the wind was going to blow, but their secret uranium enrichment plants were now out in the open and known to the IAEA (Iran's programme was now no longer a secret so it's threat was neutralised) Syria's links with A.Q.Khan were investigated and Israeli aircraft with the assistance of Turkey wiped out the Syrian facility with an airstrike, Syria's protests were muted and no-one was allowed access to the site until Syrian and North Korean "experts" dismantled the site and sanitised it (Unfortunately not efficiently enough for the IAEA inspectors they detected traces of radio-active materials).

Come the "Arab Spring" and Peter K wants me to hypocritically condemn Libyan Rebels for seeking a democratic election in Libya whilst I must support Hamas in Gaza??

The Arab League requested UN intervention in Libya, they did not request intervention in either The Yemen; Bahrain or in Syria. Probably because whilst the Arab League and GCC could regionally influence what was happening in Yemen; Bahrain & Syria - they could not in Libya (Both of Libya's neighbours east and west were in turmoil having just experienced their own "revolutions").

Unfortunately degrees of unpleasantness do not dictate what the UN can or cannot do. What is happening in Syria is strictly an internal matter, what was happening in Libya in February and March this year would have been strictly internal too had Gaddafi not resorted to hiring in Mercenaries to kill Libyan citizens.

On degrees of unpleasantness Peter what did the UN do about Darfur? Nothing - Right? Much worse than either Libya; Syria or what was happening in Iraq at that time. "Worst humanitarian disaster of our time" said Kofi Annan, but he refused to term it genocide as GWB did, because then the UN would have been automatically compelled by its charter to act.

The middle-east is tricky enough as it is Syria has Iran as an ally and has the potential to set the region alight so it requires extremely careful handling which is why your "one-size-fits-all" cannot work.