In search of deus ex machina

If events in Syria are a tragedy, its monumental regional and international cast combines to weave an intriguing plot rivaling incomplexity the tales of Greek playwright Euripides. Their public utterances areas striking as some lines in, say, Medea, and never was the need for a Euripidean deus ex machina — an unlikely intervention by a higher power to resolve a conflict — more urgent. Some 2,500 years ago, the mythical Medea shocked audiences by slaughtering her children off stage. She justified the infanticide as retribution for her philandering husband’s unfaithfulness. Nowadays, it is the mother country torturing and mowing down its children in a remorseless fight against subversive minors. Meanwhile, political actors on the global stage gravely offer advice that to many in the audience must sound like — well, Greek. Syria’s western neighbor dispatched its courier (many times) to urge an immediate end to the violence. “Our initiatives had