In an article entitled ‘The Clash Of Emotions: fear, humiliation, hope and the new international order', published in the journal Foreign Affairs in 2007, political scientist Dominique Moisi argued that the main differences that separate countries today are not ideological, but rather emotional: there is a culture of fear in the West, which is seeing its political and economic hegemony threatened, a culture of "hope" in the Asian world – mainly in India and China – where economic prospects seem more promising, and a culture of humiliation in the Islamic world, which in some places transforms directly into hatred.

The success of his article encouraged Moisi to draft a long version, ‘The Geopolitics of Emotion', published as a book in 2009, shortly after Obama's first election victory, in a climate of unprecedented enthusiasm. For this reason, Moisi was induced to refine his argument about the culture of fear – which at present "unites" Europe and the United States (not without significant differences) – suggesting that a ray of hope had appeared on the American front. More recently, Manuel Castells continued the emotional analysis of social movements in his book Networks of indignation and hope (2012).

Nevertheless, the development of the Syrian crisis has forced the refinement of such hopeful views in both cases. In particular, the manner in which part of the Western media – including The Economist  two weeks ago – has encouraged a military intervention in the Syrian case, seems to suggest that, rather than having disappeared from the horizon, these ideologies are now revealing their true faces: the game is stripped of interests, tempered now only by the protagonism of emotions – with ulterior motives or humanitarian, depending on each case.

Thus, for The Economist ("Fight this war, not the last one," 7.IX), or for well-known senators like Republican John McCain, it is the authority of Obama, the role the United States plays in the world, and the reaffirmation of Western values that are at stake in the Syrian conflict. However, for the ordinary citizen, the discourse on "Western values" raised by The Economist is becoming less credible and persuasive. The ordinary man on the street, increasingly suspicious of this kind of discourse, would say that what is really at stake is not, primarily, the U.S. position in the new international (dis)order, but rather the lives of many innocent people, millions of displaced citizens, thousands of war victims.

Certainly, the most basic moral sense tells us that if the Syrian government has used chemical weapons on its own people, it is automatically discredited by this act: a government that is not able to maintain order in a reasonable way shows its inability to govern. In the context of modern political theory, the importance of the state maintaining "a monopoly of force" is a way of avoiding indiscriminate violence within the population, not an excuse to justify it. Faced with such acts, the international community could not remain impassive. However, nor do these acts themselves legitimize an intervention whose effects could be even more devastating.

Indeed, nobody can ignore the fact that a conflict in this region could easily escalate to reach global proportions. Much less is a military response justified when there is not a defined objective, nor does the international community provide clear support for such action. "Punishing" the Assad regime (as Hollande suggests) cannot be the objective of an international military intervention. An intervention might make sense only if it is clearly geared towards helping the Syrian people, and defined in such terms that it would be possible to describe exactly the goal achieved. But this sounds quite impossible, given the internal complexity of the Syrian "people", the features of any civil war, and the divided loyalties of the various factions and neighboring countries.

The only certainty is that on the new world stage we face the limitations of modern political categories, which are often too simplistic to comprehend local political realities. We also face the limitations of a purely "rational" policy, which does not take into account the emotional dynamics of conflict, explored by sociologist Thomas Scheff, in his book Bloody Revenge. Emotions, nationalism, and war. (1994)

In this new context, whose contours are not yet sharply delineated, we have to make an effort to understand, to de-activate the humiliation and revenge circuits and rebuild social ties from the foundations; from the most basic interpersonal relations to the methods of managing international conflicts.     

Certainly, as noted by the BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen in an article on September 16, the road is not easy. But one thing should be clear: it is not wise to try to resolve a crisis by causing another major crisis. It is wise to stay calm and do everything possible to drum sense into those who have lost reason. The strength we need most today is not that of those who call to combat, but of those who urge patience.