Obama had defended the traditional concept of the use of force in self-defense; in other cases, he said, war had to meet certain international standards such as the enforcement of international law. These were the cases in which, Obama had written, eerily foreshadowing Syria, “More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region.”
