History does not repeat itself

Stuart Schneiderman says this about the Obama administration's policy regarding Syria:

the Obama administration thought that their favorite historical narrative, the one where the people rose up and overthrew tyrants, was repeating itself in Syria.

It was a naïve, a child’s-eye view of foreign policy. We learn from it that history does not repeat itself and that those who manage today’s crisis as though it were yesterday’s will be defeated.

In the comments section Lastango writes,

And so, through a long history of appeasement and perfidious deal-cutting we arrive at the present humanitarian and geopolitical disaster. It has deep, deep roots. That's why it's intractable.

So, when Obama throws up his hands and declares there's nothing we can do, he's right. But not for any reason he is prepared to actually state. He calculates correctly that his domestic political risk from inaction is trivial.

There's no point in tilting at windmills here. A nation that isn't even prepared to build a meaningful fence to secure its own southern border against a foreign invasion also isn't going to actively work to depose the regime in Iran. And until the Mullahs fall, there won't be peace at any place between Damascus and Tehran.