&gt; If the West had the means to destroy them (without harming millions of innocent civilians), the compassionate thing to do would be to do it ASAP.<p>That exactly what the west thought they could do in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it turned out that it is a lot more complex than, well, a lot of smart people expected.<p>That said, were western militaries not still smarting from those wars, there would probably have been boots on the ground a long time ago, in the hope of some sort of Balkan-war outcome.