Max Boot and Martin A Miller's books about warfare

 'In Syria, the problem is not Islamist blowback but the west’s active support for the Islamist insurgents. Almost certainly, the result will be a longer, bloodier war, possibly spreading throughout the region, in which Syria becomes one more failed state or else a hostile fundamentalist regime.'

 A shorter war might occur if the West actually armed the insurgents. Professors of European Thought can be such idiots sometimes.